Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
– psalm 150
Thus, this songbook, 150 Psalms, poems, songs written in praise to God. Inspired by the Holy Spirit to help us, lead us to praise God and enjoy God. This is how it all ends. Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty heavens. I love that picture, from the place where his glory dwells.
Psalm 150 Teaches Us to Praise God with All that We Are
Think Old Testament, his sanctuary, the temple, but his praise is not confined to a place even in the Old Testament. Praise belongs to God in the highest heavens. And all and more so this verse, when we think about our bodies in the New Testament, the new covenant through Jesus. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. They are places of praise. That’s your body today. Your body is a place of praise to God.
For, verse two, his mighty deeds and his surpassing greatness. I love that we praise God for who he is, his surpassing, his excellent, his exceeding greatness. And for what he does, his mighty deeds. So, think about it. There’s the what? Praise God. When and where? All the time. From his sanctuary to the mighty heavens. Why? Because of who he is and because of what he has done. And how? With trumpet sound. Verse three says With harp and lyre. With tambourine and dancing. With strings and flute, with the clash of cymbals, with resounding, loud clashing cymbals.
In other words, praise him with everything you’ve got. Praise him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength and all the instruments in the world. Praise him with everything we have, all the way down to our very breath. Let everything that has breath. This is why you and I have breath today, to praise God. We have breath for this purpose, to enjoy God by his grace, and to exalt God and all of his glory.
Psalm 150 Encourages Us to Live Only to Praise God
Live for this purpose today. Breathe for this purpose today. It’s what you’re made for. It’s what I’m made for. God, we praise you. We praise you. We praise you. We exalt you in all of your glory, your surpassing greatness. For all of your deeds, supremely for sending your son as a substitute sacrifice for our sin. For saving us from our sin, for bringing us into relationship with you. For making our bodies a temple of your Holy Spirit, a place dedicated to your praise.
God, we confess today based on Psalm 150 and all the Psalms, that life, blessing, joy, peace, string, hope, love, all of these things are found in you alone. So, we seek you in Psalm 63 with all our hearts. We seek you. We long for you. We praise you. We declare your glory in light of Psalm 96.
In light of Psalm 27, we seek your face. One thing we seek, we may dwell in your house and gaze upon your beauty and declare your glory. Better is one day, Psalm 84, in your house than a thousand elsewhere. We’d rather be a doorkeeper in the temple. And all the more so God with our bodies as a temple. Oh God, help us not to waste a breath today on anything less than praising you for who you are, what you’ve done, with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength.
Praying for the Yoron People
God, we pray that our every moment would be lived in praise to you and lived to spread your praise. Lord, help us to praise you in the world around us today to lead others to see your surpassing greatness and your mighty deeds. God, we praise you to help us to share the good news of your grace and your glory with people around us today, with peoples around the world, every single one of them. For Yoron people of Japan, this tiny people group on an island near Okinawa in the Ryukyu Island chain south of Japan.
God, we pray for the spread of your praise to the remotest people groups in the world, including Yoron people. That they might enjoy you and exalt you as temples of your Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus, through reception of the gospel. God, we pray for all the peoples of the earth to praise your name. And we pray that you would spend our lives on this earth for the spread of your praise among all of them. Our lives, our praying right now, our resources. God, help us to make disciples of the nations right where we live and wherever you lead, until all the peoples are praising your name with their breath.
In Jesus’ name we pray according to Psalm 150 and all these Psalms together. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
