I Do Declare #1

The goal of praise is not to make us feel good emotionally.

The primary goal of worship is to ascribe to God the honor that is due to His name for His love and His faithfulness and His goodness to His people. Since life is short and mortality is real, we should turn to God as our fortress. He casts out despair. And as Pastor Don Green will encourage us today on the Truth Pulpit, we're to offer continual praise as a result.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. Our series, Here You May Safely Dwell, continues today with part one of the message titled, I Do Declare. We'll see what true praise looks like. But Don, why is the offering of praise so important?

You know, my friends, it's easy to think about God as somebody who can solve our problems for us, and He certainly is gracious to help us on our way through life. But we need to remember that our first priority in response to God is to honor Him for the greatness and the goodness of His character, especially as He has made Himself known in the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we praise Him and we declare His praise in response to His goodness to us. I hope this priority will be cemented in your mind if you'll stay with us today on the Truth Pulpit.

Okay, Don and friend, let's join our teacher now in the Truth Pulpit. When you have a biblical perspective on life, a biblical perspective on death, when you have an appreciation of these promises of God, when you have an appreciation for who Christ is and what He has done for us, then all of that builds a momentum of praise and worship and thanksgiving and gratitude in your heart that requires you, that brings you to a point where you want to thank God for being so good to you when you were so desperately lost beforehand. And that's what Psalm 92 does, the godly respond with thanksgiving and praise to the goodness of God. Now, Psalm 92 tells us that it was especially aimed, the inscription tells us that it was especially aimed for Sabbath worship in Old Testament times. Look at that inscription there at the beginning that says a psalm, a song for the Sabbath day.

Now, the biblical authorities, the scholars tell us that after the exile, Psalm 92 was read on Saturday morning during their worship time after the exile. One commentator says this, it was sung in the morning when, on the offering of the first lamb, the wine was poured out as a drink offering unto the Lord. And so this psalm was read as they entered into worship, as they entered into the first motions of worship, this was setting their mind toward worship and giving them a proper framework to think about worship as the temple service proceeded. Now, with those things in mind, what you find are three different kinds of praise that are expressed as you work your way through this psalm. Three different kinds of praise, three different aspects of praise you might say. And the first one is the praise of music, the praise of music. The psalmist opens and states his theme in the opening verses, look at verse one with me. He says, it is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness by night.

How? Verse three, with the ten stringed lute and with the harp, with resounding music upon the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by what you have done. I will sing for joy at the works of your hands. So he opens with this musically dominated, this musically dominated approach to worship.

And let me just point something out to you in this section. You'll see the name of the Lord in all caps there in verse one. The proper name for God, Yahweh, the covenant keeping, promise keeping God. There in verse one, it opens with the Lord and in verse four, you see it at the end of this section as well. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by what you have done.

As I say so often, when you see a bracketing structure like that, a poetic bracketing structure, it is telling you what the theme of that section is. This section begins and ends with the name of the Lord. And it's simply a literary way, a literary device to show that he is the focus of attention as this psalm opens up. He is at the center of the psalmist's thought and the psalmist's praise as he opens up this psalm. And so you have God exalted right from the beginning. You have God elevated.

You have God being praised right at the beginning of this psalm. And so your attention is drawn with laser focus to the name of the Lord. And now, with that established, what happens is that there is this response that is given to him.

The response that is given to him. And the psalmist says it is good to do something. It is good to do three things, he says here in this section.

Notice it with the infinitives there. It is good, number one, to give thanks to the Lord. Secondly, it is good to sing praises to your name, O Most High.

And thirdly, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness by night. Three verbal phrases there that show us the proper way to respond in worship to this Lord God. One, worship involves giving him thanks, expressing gratitude to him. Worship involves, secondly, singing. Singing praises to his name, and there is that musical focus. And thirdly, there is this verbal declaration of the faithful, loyal love of God by morning and by night.

In other words, this day-long celebration of worship and thanksgiving for the God of whom he speaks. Now, what this is telling us is this. It is good to do these things, and it's good in this sense. What do you mean that it's good to do this?

Well, first of all, it is good because it is fitting. It is right. It is the proper thing to do in response to God's revelation of himself for us as Christians, in response to our Lord Jesus, who lived and died and rose again to redeem us at the cost of his own lifeblood. Beloved, isn't it true that it's only right, it's only proper, it is fitting for us to respond with this kind of praise and gratitude to God in response to all that he has done? You see, Scripture calls us to give an external response to the nature and the works of God. And so when we come together to worship week by week, when we come together as a congregation to give corporate praise, beloved, we can say on the authority of God's word that we are doing something good.

We are doing something right. This is what the people of God should do. They should come together and congregate and consciously express their gratitude to him for all that he has done, to sing praises to him, to sing praises to his name, which is an expression of the fullness of his character, the fullness of his attributes, to sing praise to that great God and to declare in the exposition of his word, his loving kindness and his faithfulness to his people. And so every time we come together, beloved, we can have a sense of confidence and assurance that what we are doing is good and acceptable and proper in the sight of God.

This is what he wants his people to do. And this is how we worship. We express our worship in thanks.

We sing praises and we declare the glory of God in the exposition of his word. That's good. It's right. It's proper.

That's what we should do. But it's good in another way as well. It's good in the sense that that God values it. God assigns worth to this. This is what God wants from us. And so God considers it to be a good thing.

It's the right thing for us to do. And so when we come together, there is there's just this ever growing sense of propriety and confidence and a sense that this is what we are appointed to do as the people of God. And in some ways, you know, people want to know, what's the will of God for my life? Young people want to know, what's the will of God for my life? And, you know, by which they often mean, who should I marry? What kind of career should I pursue?

And, you know, where should I live? Those kinds of things. And there's a place for those concerns. But what I want you to see, beloved, is this, is that the will of God for your life transcends all of that wherever you live and whoever you marry and whatever you do for a career, there's something that transcends all of that in that the will of God is for you to worship Him like this. One of the things that we said in our opening series of messages from the book of Philippians was that we are saints. We are set apart for God and for His purposes. And one of the things for you young people to take to heart and to be mindful of as you go through life is to realize that God has set you apart so that it would be an ordered high priority of your life to worship Him just like this.

That's a good thing for you to do. Whatever else you do, whatever else happens in your life and family, whether it's for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for you to worship God like this is the supreme priority of your life. Scripture says in John chapter 4 that God is seeking people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And the question for you is whether you will be that kind of person that God is looking for, whether you will lay aside your preoccupation with earthly things and make this the preeminent priority of your heart, whether you will make this the preeminent priority that you teach your children, not the pursuit of wealth, wealth can come or go, not the pursuit of earthly things, not the pursuit, let me just be really blunt here, not the pursuit of athletics and all of those other things that can tend to creep in and just take over our lives like weeds in a garden. The question is whether you'll teach your family, whether you'll teach your boys and teach your girls that the preeminent priority of life is for you to worship God like this and to worship Him exclusively through Christ, to love Christ, and to trust in Christ as the preeminent priority of life.

You can look at Psalm 92 and say, if that's what I'll do, I'll know I'm doing a good thing because this is what God's Word declares to be good. You know, the goal of praise, this would be shocking to some, it won't be shocking to you, the goal of praise is not to make us feel good emotionally. We might respond and it might make us feel good, but that's not the primary goal of worship at all. The primary goal of worship is to ascribe to God the honor that is due to His name for His love and His faithfulness and His goodness to His people. That is why we praise God. It's because it's what He deserves, it's what He assigns value to, and so whether I come away feeling good about it or not is utterly secondary, that's not the point.

You know, that is just not the point. God is at the center of it, and that's what we seek to return to Him. Now, as you go on, as you go on, the psalmist prescribes a skillful contribution of music to worship. Look at verse 3 with me, Psalm 92 verse 3.

To do these three things, to give thanks, to sing praises, to declare His loving kindness day and night, and how to do that? With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, with resounding music upon the lyre, and what we see here in Psalm 92 verse 3, and this is one of the things that I'm grateful to those in our church that help make this happen, because I don't have the ability to do it at all, is that the psalmist is contemplating a skillful contribution of music to worship, and one of the things that a high view of Scripture and a high view of God will do is it will elevate the music in a church to a place of transcendence, and if I can say this, I think I can because I don't have a part in it, I see that just ever increasing in our music here at Truth Community Church, and I'm very, very grateful for it. The music of true worship should be distinct from the music of the world. It should not sound like a rock concert when you come into the worship of God. There should be a sense that this is distinct. There is a level of excellence, there is a level of approach that is distinct from what I find in the world, and the music in God-centered praise should be lofty, it should be excellent, and that's what we delight in trying to aim for in what we do here at Truth Community Church, and this is the reason why resounding music with skill and excellence is what Scripture calls us to.

Let me just say this. Those who devote their time to make our music excellent are doing a great service for all of us. And it's good for us to acknowledge that and for you to thank them as we go through life together for that contribution that they make. Whatever musical ability God has given you, He has given to you for the express purpose that you would use that to His glory. The music that you play, the songs that you sing should ever be centered around the thought of how can I use this to the glory of God and to declare the praise of my King. Now, I don't mind people playing in secular orchestras or anything like that.

That's not my point here. My point here is this, is that you should recognize that the giftedness that God has given you is for His purposes, and to find a way for an outlet of the ability and the training and the opportunities that He's given you to look for a way in your life to use that to His glory. That is crucial for those who have been given musical ability to consider it in that way. Now, he goes on in verse 4. This comes from a heart that finds joy in the Lord Himself. Verse 4, For you, O Lord, have made me glad by what you have done.

I will sing for joy at the works of your hands. Now, what this shows us is that this God-centered praise makes us glad. It makes us joyful. And it even does this, beloved, that we all understand that life gets difficult. What we see in this psalm is that even when life is difficult, we bring together, we gather our heart together and put the effort into excellent worship that gives thanks to God, that sings praises to Him, and that declares His loving kindness by day and by night. And that when we come together, we are putting our best effort forward when we gather together for worship.

We're putting our best effort forward, not in just mumbling the songs as they're said, but we realize that there is something lofty that we each have a part to play, and we enter into it and say, I am going to give this my best effort here. I'm going to give the Lord the best fruit of my heart as I respond. And I'll leave behind the difficulties, I'll leave behind my sadness to orient my thoughts vertically toward God and to give Him the praise that He's deserving of. Now, why is it that we, in a sense, we neglect ourselves to do that?

Why is that appropriate? Why do we leave ourselves behind when we enter into the court of the Lord's praise? Well, look at it again with me in verse 4. Why all of this effort for praise and with excellent music and so forth? Well, God, You've made me glad by what You've done. I'll sing for joy at the works of Your hands.

As it were, to look in the face of Christ by faith, to look in His face by faith, to look at His hands by faith and see the wounds of the hands that bore the nails that Your sins might be born at the cross of Calvary, and to realize the eternal love that was expressed at the cross when He died for Your salvation, when He came out of the grave with power and ascended to high and now Your elder brother interceding for You in heaven. Oh, beloved, don't you see that this makes the Christian heart rejoice, that this brings us gladness no matter what the challenge may be, and that when this is why we set aside our preoccupation with the world in order to come and say once again, Christ, You are the preeminent affection of my heart. You are the preeminent priority of my heart. In You I find perfection.

In You I find the culmination of all of my affections and desires. You are all that I love, and I'm going to praise You for that no matter what else is happening in life. And so He praises God. Look at it there with me at verse 4 at the end there.

I'll sing for joy at the works of Your hands. He praises God for what He has done in time and space, and for us our praise rises even higher as we contemplate the coming, the sacrifice, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ and His imminent return. These are why we offer God our praise, and music helps us to express that for which we're very grateful. And so that's the first aspect of praise that you see in Psalm 92, this right and fitting response of the praise of music toward our Lord. Now, He shifts gears rather dramatically as we move into the second section of the psalm because He gives us what you might call a praise of contrast, a praise of contrast. And in this section, the psalmist is exclaiming the glory of God and His great works and His great mind. Look at verse 5 with me now. As we look at this praise of contrast, he says in verse 5, How great are your works, O Lord!

Your thoughts are very deep. He contemplates the works of creation. He contemplates His work for His people, the works of redemption. He redeemed His people from Egypt.

Now we celebrate our redemption from sin. And what kind of mind is capable of speaking creation into existence from nothing? What kind of mind is able to do that? Who has the power to create out of nothing?

Ex nihilo, who has the power to do that? Well, our God does. And so His works are transcendent.

They are great works that no human could do. And it's not just that He has the power to do this. He had the mind to conceive what the plan would look like. He had the mind to establish the order that we see in the heavens about us. And when you contemplate those things at any depth at all, you realize that the mind of God is beyond human comprehension. His mind is great. His works are great. It humbles us to realize that we're in the presence of one who is so transcendently greater than we are.

We have none of that capability in our own. And the contrast of the greatness of God's work and the greatness of His mind draws us to worship, draws us to praise Him. Lord, look at all that You've done.

Look at who You are. It compels me to worship You. And then, by contrast, here's the contrast, the very sharp, direct, blunt, immediate contrast here in verse 6. A senseless man has no knowledge, nor does a stupid man understand this, that when the wicked sprouted up like grass and all who did iniquity flourished, it was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. He's contrasting the unbelieving, atheistic mind, the fool, with this mind of God. And this mortal man is foolish.

He's like a brute beast who misinterprets the world around him and has no clue to the reality of life. In our day, we could look at Hollywood. We could look at the media. We could look at the professing church and how they love to look upon men and women of charm who seem to have it made. And all is directed toward appearance and the like. Here in Psalm 92, however, the psalmist is praising God because he has seen through all of it. He is not attracted to the superficial appeal of the world. He's not attracted to the boastful pride of life or the lust of the eyes or the lust of the flesh.

He's seen through it all. What he is saying here is, Lord, that mindset, that approach to life, only ends in judgment and in destruction. Those who live apart from you, who rebel against you, are senseless, stupid men who don't understand the brevity of life and the fact that judgment is coming.

They give themselves over to the most utterly superficial and transient matters of life. He says, look at it in verse 7, not recognizing that all of that passes like the grass of the field and ends up in destruction. We praise God through music that offers him thanks for all he does for us, and we praise him by contrasting his goodness to the world's darkness and our sinful nature. Pastor Don Green will present the final installment of our series, Here You May Safely Dwell, next time on The Truth Pulpit, so be sure to join us then. Right now, though, here's Don with some exciting ministry news. Well, my friend, it's always meaningful for me to be able to preach God's word to God's people and to share it with you here on the radio.

Recently, I completed a series that is one of my all-time favorites. It's called The Bible and Roman Catholicism. It was several messages designed to test Catholic teaching by what Scripture says. We'd like to share a copy of that with you, a full, complete CD album of 10 messages. Just go to our website and request it, or you'll find the downloads. We just want you to have this material at no cost as our gift and ministry to you. Just visit us at thetruthpulpit.com and click on Radio Offers to learn more. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.