Psalm 150

Or we've come to the end of our time in the Psalms, and we have come to the end of the Psalms. To Psalm number one fifty, to the final Psalm. As I prepared and read over the course of this week, I was struck by a statement that just simply could not go unused. Spurgeon, in introducing Psalm one fifty, says this, we have now reached the last summit of the mountain chain of Psalms. It rises high into the clear azure, and its brow is bathed in the sunlight of the eternal Word, or the eternal world of worship. It is a rapture. The poet prophet is full of inspiration and enthusiasm. He slays, not to argue, to teach, to explain, but cries with burning words, Praise him, Praise him, Praise ye the Lord. That word praise is found thirteen times in these few verses. It begins every phrase save one, and it is contained in that phrase that it does not begin. Make no mistake about it. This Psalm is about praise. If I had the title it, it would be God is to be praised. Not necessarily, I wouldn't necessarily title it praise the Lord. But God is to be praised, or even you must praise the Lord, because it goes beyond even that, but that God is to be praised. You'll understand what I mean in a moment. But it's important that we define this word praise. It's a word that we use frequently, and it's a word that we assume we understand. And for most of us, if someone said to you, well, what does praise mean, you probably look back at him and you'd say, you know, you know what it means. Praise. New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesus puts it this way, to shout a claim, rejoice, utter a festive cry as an expression of appreciation and a response to good qualities. The call to praise occurs in the Psalm, either as a liturgical direction or as a literary designation. Here's what we find in the psalms. This exhortation to praise the Lord has an initial position in Psalm one eleven and one twelve. It has a final position and Psalm one O four, one oh five, and one fifteen through one seventeen. There is a group of psalms wherein this exhortation to praise God frames the psalm. It's at the beginning and the end. Psalm one O six, Psalm one thirteen, Psalm one thirty five, and then Psalm one forty six through one fifty. And here in Psalm one fifty we reach a crescendo, and it is a magnificent one. Join me as I read Psalm one hundred and fifty. 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 symbols. Praise him with loud, clashing symbols. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, and again, praise the Lord. God is to be praised. But is it just that simple. Initially I'm reading Psalm one fifty, and I thought, you know, this would be like my shortest sermon ever to stand up and read it and say, praise God, y'all amen. But you know better than that. Several things we see in the Psalm, some of them directly, another's by implication. First is that God is to be praised everywhere. Notice his first verse, Praise the Lord, Praise God in his sanctuary, praise Him in his mighty heavens. And then we get down to these earthly instruments. But the statement here is that God is to be praised everywhere, even in the heavens. God is praised everywhere. God is to be praised. There is nowhere where He is not to be praised. Beginning in heaven and coming to earth shows us this pattern of the praise of Heaven spreading beyond heaven to the earth, of God's praise spreading throughout the earth. This has tremendous missiological implications, and I would argue that Psalm one is in many ways a missiological Psalm. See, we don't do missions simply so people won't go to Hell. Our goal is not a man's centered goal. We don't look at people out there and say you're lost, your only way that you're in hell. You need not to go to hell, and so because of you and your needs, I'm going to evangelize you. That's not why we do evangelism. That's not why we do missions. Our goal and missions is that the praise of God be manifested and magnified among the nations. That's our goal, that God would be praised everywhere, that throughout the earth and among all people's God would be praised. Because God is great and greatly to be praised. It's the cry of the Psalmists. Listen to some of these Psalm two, verse eight. Ask of me, I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession Psalm eighteen forty nine. For this I will praise you, o Lord, among the nations and sing to your name. How about in Psalm twenty two twenty seven, all the ends of the earth shall remember to turn to the Lord, and all the families of nations shall worship before you Psalm number forty six, verse ten. Be still and know that I am God. We know that part what comes next, I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth Psalm sixty seven to four. Let the name nations be glad and sing for joy. For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth. Psalm seventy two seventeen. May His name, endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun. May people be blessed in him. All nations call him blessed. Psalm eighty two eight. Arise, oh God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations Psalm eighty sixty nine. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. Psalm ninety sixty three. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among the peoples Psalm one O eight three. I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praises to you among the nations Psalm one seventeen one. Praise the Lord, all nations, extol him, all peoples. This is the cry of the Psalms. This is the cry of the Bible. That God would be praised everywhere, praised because He deserves to be praised. Paul picks up on this theme in Romans Romans fifteen eight to eleven. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, therefore, I will praise you among the gentiles and sing to your name. And again it said, rejoice o gentiles with his people, and again praise the Lord, all you gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him Gentiles. In another word for gentiles is you people. Amen. There's the Jewish people, and then there's you people. Everybody else. In other words, all the nations. That's what's being referred to here, all the nations. That God would be praised everywhere. He is to be praised everywhere. The praise of God is not something that we keep to ourselves. We're not satisfied with that. We can't know who God is and how he deserves to be praised, and be satisfied that he's not being praised there as well as here. Everywhere, God is to be praised. The Lord's prayer, Our Father in Heaven, hollibly your name, your Kingdom. Come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Again, may earth extol you as Heaven does the Great Commission. Notice this, now, the eleven disciples, we gotta go back to verse sixteen. Oftentimes we start your great commission, we go with you know, Go therefore, or therefore go go to verse sixteen. Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted, and Jesus came and said to them, here it is all authority and heaven and on earth has been given to me. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Christ. That's the foundation upon which the Great commission is built. Why do we go? Because all authority is his and everybody needs to be told. He needs to be praised everywhere. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Our commission is most assuredly about all men everywhere hearing the Gospel. Our commission is most assuredly about men everywhere where coming to faith. But make no mistake about it. Our commission is about the praise of our God being extended and manifest and magnified. Throughout the earth, because God is to be praised the end of the Age Revelation five, nine and seven nine. Revelation five, beginning of verse eight. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals? For you were slain, and by your blood you ransom to people for God, from every tribe and language, and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Revelation seven, verse nine. After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with loud voices. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. That's praise from the ends of the earth, from all people, all tribes, all nations, all languages. That is the fullness of the reward for which Christ laid down his life. He is to be exalted. He is to be praised. The praise of God cannot and must not be contained. It must spread. It must be our desire to see it spread. The cry of redemptive history is praise then go, Oh, then praise, then go, then praise, then go, then praise until there is no more going. But there will never be a time when there is no more praising. God is to be praised everywhere. Not only that, but God is to be praised because of who he is and what he's done. Remember that definition. We praise God. We extol God because of who he is and because of what he's done. Praise him for his mighty deeds, praise him according to his excellent greatness. Objectively, God is worthy of our praise because of who he is. He just is worthy because he's God. Who said it before, and I'll say it again. God's not running for God, Amen. He is worthy of our praise objectively, intrinsically because of who he is. The distance between us and God elicits praise. He is not one of us. He is not like us. He is above us, he is beyond us. He is other, he is separate, he is transcendent. He is holy, and therefore he is to be praised. Even the acknowledgment of these things is praise to God. The sheer glory of God elicits praise. God is by definition praiseworthy, because God is glorious. Amen. The more you know to know God is to praise God, because every time you learn something else about God, you learn another reason that he's worthy to be praised, the fact that we're created by God makes praise the only proper response. God made me. I love it. Children? You know you know the Catechism, don't you the Catechism of Boys and Girls? You know it? Don't y'all need you? Right now? Kids? Who made you? One more time? Who made you? What? Else? Did God make all things? All things? Why did God make you in all things for his glory? For his glory? That He might be praised? Subjectively, God is worthy of worship because of what he's done. If redemptive history didn't exist, God would be worthy of worship. However, God is not only worthy of worship because of who he is, but he goes beyond it, and he's worthy of worship because of what he's done. And so now we praise God as we extol his virtues, and we say, this is who God is. And every time we say this is who God is, it alice, it's praise from us. But now we go beyond that as the redeemed, and we say, this is what God has done, and he's worthy of praise because of what he's done. Had he not done these things, he would be worthy of praise. But he did. God created us. He's worthy of praise. God redeemed us. He's worthy of praise. A great example of this is found in Psalm ninety six. This idea that we praise God for who he is and for what he's done. Turn back with me for a moment. It's worth going here and seeing this some ninety six. Get you to help me with this. Psalm ninety six. You ready, Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord. All the earth now watch, sing to the Lord, Bless his name. That would be who he is. Tell of his salvation from day to day. That would be what he's done. Declare his glory among the nations. That would be who he is. Thank you for your help. I appreciate that his marvelous works among all the peoples, that would be what he's done. Next verse, For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. That would be who he is. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols. But the Lord made the heavens. That would be what he's done. Again and again and again. Throughout the Psalms, we're reminded that God is to be praised first and foremost for who he is, but beyond that for what he's done. You know this means the study of scripture should lead to praise, because when we study scripture, we learn who God is and what he's done. But watch this, The study of theology should lead to praise, because as we learn more about who God is, he praise him. The study of church history ought to lead to praise because it's a study of who God is and what God has done. Amen, it worries me. It worries me. There are all these people, and I remember when I first went off to seminary. There are all these people who said, now you go, but you be careful won't you let it mess you up? You know, like somehow studying about God was going to kill my enthusiasm for God, that somehow learning why God was worthy to be praised would make me not want to praise God. Saying that somebody's about to go off to seminary is like saying to a man who's about to be married, you be careful now, don't you learn too much about her, because right now you're all in love and stuff. But if you learn too much stuff about her, that might mess you up. As we deepen our knowledge and understanding of who God is, we understand more and more that He is worthy of our praise. Amen. Thirdly, God is to be praised with instruments. Look at this seems simple, but this is profound. Praise him with trumpet sound, Praise him with the lute and harp. Praise him with tambourine and dance. Praise him with the strings and pipe. Praise him with the sounding symbols. Praise him with loud, clashing symbols. God created all things, and therefore he is to be worshiped by all things. Listen to Calvin here, the Psalmist, therefore and exhorting believers, to pour forth all their joy in the praise of God, and enumerates one upon another all the musical instruments which were then in use, and reminds them that they ought all to be consecrated to the worship of God. Praise God with everything. By the way, instrumentation implies unity and intentionality. What are we gonna do? We're gonna praise God. We've got instruments. How do we praise God if we've all got instruments? Do we all just sort of close our eyes and try to feel our way to what it is that we ought to know. If we're going to have instrumentation, then we're going to be intentional and we're going to have unity. Amen. It also implies diversity, that there will be a diversity of gifts and a diversity of instruments as we praise God. That not everyone's expression is going to be the same, but everyone's expression is going to come together to make a unified expression of the praise of God, which, by the way, makes God even more praiseworthy because He makes unity out of our diversity. Instrumentation also implies beauty and skill and excellence. You know sometimes, you know, know, we had this old saying, you know, I don't sing all that well, but I make a joyful noise. You know that's not what that phrase means. In the Psalms, the idea of a joyful noise is not the idea that says you're not good at it. But just do it anyway, and just do it real loud, because I don't make up for not being good. Let me say something to you. God is worthy of you learning how to sing. I'm gonna say it again. God is worthy of you learning how to sing. God is worthy of you working to sing better and not just make an excuse for the fact that you don't. He's worthy of that, He's worthy of praise. He's worthy of you, prayerfully saying, Lord, please help me with this, because I don't want to be a distraction because we're supposed to be here praising the Lord. I don't want people in instead going what died over there? Again, We're not talking about perfectionism here, that's not the point. But the fact of the matter is there's an implication here of beauty and of skill and of excellence, and the pursuit of beauty and of skill and of excellence. Listen again to what Calvin says here, I do not insist upon the words in the Hebrews signifying the musical instruments. Only let the reader remember that sundry different kinds are here mentioned. In other words, he's saying, I'm not saying here that that what's being lined out in this arm is a rule for which instruments you can have. That's not what he's saying here. But the idea is that there's instrumentation and whatever we have we use in the praise of God, which we're in use under the legal economy. The more forcibly to teach the children of God that they cannot apply themselves too diligently to the praise of God, as if we would enjoin them strenuously to bring this service all their powers and devote themselves wholly to it. That we work at it, that we're serious about it, that we pursue excellence, that we desire to do well. Amen. That's how we should do everything in the praise of God. We don't expect people to come stand behind this sacred desk and say, you know what, Yeah, I haven't really given a whole lot of time for this, but you know, I'll just preach it real loud, and maybe that'll just make up for the fact that I haven't devoted myself to this work. Folks, that dog won't hunt. Amen, we pursue excellence in what we do for God. Don't just take my word for it. Ecclesiastes nine ten. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, For there is no work or thought, or knowledge or wisdom and she owl to which you are going Colossians three twenty three. A little bit less pessimistic version. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord, and not for men Colossians three nineteen. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. This ought to be a passionate pursuit. It should be, for God is to be praised passionately or emotionally. I know there are a lot of people, a lot of people who have who have problems with this. There's some of you. Maybe you came from a charismatic background, and you understand excess and the dangers of excess, and you're really wary of excess and the dangers of excess, you know, and so you just you kind of have got to keep this thing right here. Just gotta keep just gotta keep this gotta make sure I do. Oh, I'm rocking this game here, rocket, I gotta you know, there's some of us, and that's where we are because that's where we came from. There are others who've got this warped idea of what it means to be reformed in your theology, and it's somehow to be reformed, you know, means that you have a big head and no passion. God forbid, God forbid. Listen. The introduction of instruments also implied emotion and passion. You can't get a bunch of instruments together without them emotion and passion. Confession. I love the symphony, Love the symphony. Bigger confession, I love the opera. I'm an emotional guy, and I love the way music evokes emotion. And you can't get skilled musicians together to play a piece of music without it evoking emotion. It's supposed to evoke emotion. A little while back, one of our children had a birthday and we took them to the symphony because they were playing the music from Pixar movies. And I'm just saying, I'm like, this would be awesome. The kids will come and they know the Pixar movies and they know these songs, and we'll sit there and you know, they'll play the music and whatnot. And one of the things that they played was the music from the movie Up and they had the little scenes from the movie Up. And so Bridget looks over at me because that movie, it just that movie just messed me up. I'm sitting there in the movie. I took my kids to that movie. I did not know that there was going to be a death in the movie, that there was gonna be this marriage and then there was gonna be that. I'm sitting there with my kids and I'm crying in the movie theater and they're like that, okay, yeah, that is all right, don't watch the movie. And I'm just sitting there like that's just wrong. Why would they do that. There's a kids movie. They got me sitting here crying like this and the kids is wrong. And so here we are. I knew it was coming this time, right, So here we are. We're there, we're at the symphony and they're playing it. I know it's coming, y'all. I'm still when they played that part of the scene in the music playing. I just couldn't help it. This supplies emotion, if you don't believe that he's trying to imply emotion. He also introduces the idea of dance. Now, where have we seen dance? Is not a usual part of the worship of Israel? Amen? Somebody? They did not have a you know, dance team that you know that danced and there you know when they were there? No, no, they no, they didn't. No. No. But there were a few scenes in the history of Israel where the people of God, praising God for who he is and what he had done, actually responded in a visceral, physical way. Listen to Spurgeon's comment here associated with the deliverance at the Red Sea, this form of worship set forth the most jubilant and exultant of worship. The hands and the feet were both employed, and the entire body moved in symphony with the members. Are there not periods of life when we feel so glad that we would fame dance for joy? Let not such exhilaration be spent among common things, upon common things, But let the name of God stir us to ecstasy. There is enough in our holy faith to create and to justify the utmost degree of rapturous delight. If men are dull in the worship of the Lord, our God, they are not acting consistently with the character of their religion. We are passionate, emotional people. God made us that way. That's who we are. And if we're passionate and emotional people everywhere but in here, something is wrong. I had a conversation with a young man just last week or two weeks ago here at church, coming out of charismatic movement and really wary of this, and that kind of bought into this idea of this statement that you know, we at to guard against emotion. Quickly quickly stopped him and said, no, no, we guard against emotionalism, but we can't guard against emotion because we are emotional people. In fact, do you know what happens when you try to come to church and guard yourself against emotion? It makes you frustrated. Guess what frustration is emotion? If you can't say, a man, you ought to say out we are emotional people. Don't tell me you're not an emotional person. You are an emotional person. And if you're not emotional in the worship of God. It's because you've learned something very very wrong. You sit and you watch your television and there's some kind of intense situation going on. I remember a number of times, you know, when like there's the kid who's down in the well, and you know, and everybody comes together and they get all this equipment and they're digging to try to get the kid out of the well, and everybody's a fraid. Ho is the kid alive? Or you know the miners in South America not long ago, they're down in the mind. Are they alive? Are they what's gonna happen? What's gonna you remember what happens when those individuals break the surface. There is jubilant emotion and outburst of joy because we're emotional people. Listen, you didn't get saved from a well, You got saved from a hell. How dare you not be emotional about that? What is wrong with you? If you can't get emotional about the God who saved you and passionate about the redemption that you have. What are you going to do in heaven? If you are afraid to be appropriately emotional before God? Yes, we must not confuse emotion with emotionalism. Emotionalism like songs with bad theology but with good melody, so that we get heresies stuck in our head. Amen, just turn on contemporary Christian music for a little while. Won't take you long, won't take you I'm I don't even have to give you a list. Just turn it on for a little while, won't take you long. And you hear something and it will hit you emotionally and it will draw you in. And the next thing you know, you're saying those words in your head and you go, wait a minute, that's not true. See, that's emotionalism, where we shoot for the emotion in spite of the truth, or songs of good theology but bad melody. Truth, it just won't stick. We've had this happen a couple of times. Here, just full confession. You know, we love our hymnal and we've you know, we've got our hymnoals and you know, just trnity Hymnal Baptist's Edition. It's got our confession at the back of it and all that just wonderful, so exciting. We got our hymnals. But like the first couple of months that we had the hymnals and once in a while we would like have picked songs for the service, and we didn't know that there was a different tune. And all of a sudden, we've got songs that we know and love and we're singing them to these tunes that just make us go, make it stop. You know you did, all of us did. We're figuring out where those are now. Amen, But what's the point there? That the lyrics elicit a certain kind of emotion, but the music can elicit a different kind of emotion. And when there's a contradiction there, we have a problem. It's not emotion that's bad, or songs whose lyrics and melody send conflicting messages. We're thinking about the death and crucifixion of Jesus, but it sounds like we're having a party. Songs that become mantras designed to elicit a cathartic response. There's much of this in contemporary worship music, where there's a phrase that we just repeat over and over and over and over again so that we can somehow get to some altered state of consciousness and get to this cathartic emotional experience. And if the word or phrase is something that you take out of a passage of scripture, well then it's Bible, right. But again that's emotionalism designed to elicit a response, or songs in genres that contradict the Christian message. There's certain types of music that are just carnal and rebellious and angry and fleshly, the container matters. A man who is going to propose does not bring a beautiful diamond ring and put it in tupperware to hand it to his intended. You make sure that the container is worthy of the content. There are some music, there's some music that as container is not worthy of the content of the gospel. So emotion is not the problem. Emotionalism is the problem, and our emotions are not always going to be the same. Oftentimes when we think emotion, we just think, you know, we just think about the ecstasy and the joy and so on. So I've been there, I've been there, I've been in those services. I've been in those services and talk about, you know, the football game, and we got to be like the football game and we're just yeah, that guy always so like it sounds like you're at a football game. We're not at a football game. Sometimes the emotion is brokenness and humility. Sometimes the emotion is somber. Other times the emotion is elation and joy. Sometimes we're contemplative. But you see, our goal is not that we come here and we gather together every week and we all want to leave on a high. That's not our goal. There's sometimes when it's appropriate for us to feel like we need to leave crawling out of here. Finally, God is to be praised with word and song. It says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. We move from those instruments and the idea of instrumentation to now the idea of word and song in everything that has breath. The definition of praise requires words. Remember we're acknowledging what something is, what God is, and what God has done. It requires words. If we just had music, no matter how you know, excell and passionate the music was, but we didn't have words, we didn't have content, we didn't have story, we didn't have gospel, then it wouldn't be praise, it would just be performance. The corporate nature of praise requires a common vocabulary. If we're going to praise God together, we've got to have a common vocabulary so that we can do it together. We don't all just sort of go off into our own place and do our own thing and have a cacophony of sound. Anybody ever been in a church, you know, where everybody just kind of broke out into tongues and there's just a cacophony of noise all over the place. That is not praise. It's confusion. And God is not the author of confusion. And again, the missiological purpose of praise requires bull clear proclamation. We want people to join us in praising God, which means we have to be clear about the God whom we're praising and why we're praising him. So all of this points to our need for words and for thoughts and for ideas that are clear. Again, listen to the psalmis, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. Psalm twenty two, verse twenty two and thirty. How about in Psalm thirty five, verse twenty eight, Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and your praise all the day long Psalm forty, verse five. You have multiplied, O Lord, my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you. I will proclaim and tell of them that they are more than can be told Psalm seventy one to fifteen. My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation, all the day, for their number is past my knowledge. Psalm seventy eight, verse four. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the gracious deeds of the Lord and his might, and the wonders that he has done. Psalm ninety six, verse two. Sing to the Lord, bless his name, tell of his salvation from day to day. Psalm number one oh five verse two. Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of his wondrous works and Psal one O seven twenty two. And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy. With our words we speak forth praise, and it has a dual purpose. With our words we speak forth the praise God, because God is worthy of that praise, because of who he is and what He's done. But with our words we speak forth the praise of God. So that the nations will hear, so that the nations will know, so that the nations will join in the praise of God, and that the praise of God will expand throughout the earth. This is why we praise him. This is the praise that is due to his name, the praise that he's worthy of. We know what Christ has done. We are who and what we are because of what Christ has done on our behalf. And so we tell tell of what He has done because of our desire to praise him for it and thank him for it. And we tell of what He has done because of our desire that the nations may know. Let's pray, Father, as we bow before you, we bow in humble praise and adoration. We bow acknowledging the fact that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You're worthy of praise. We bow acknowledging the fact that He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. And him he is indeed worthy of praise, acknowledging the fact that though we were dead in our transgressions, you made us alive together with Christ. He's worthy of praise. And then having been made alive, we turned in repentance and faith and found forgiveness. You are indeed worthy of praise. Having forgiven us, you adopted us. You are conforming us to the image of your son. You are indeed worthy of praise. Your son is seated at your right hand, interceding for us, as we are being conformed to his image day by day. You're worthy of praise. Our righteous Redeemer will return at the end of the age as a righteous judge, and he will judge the living and the dead. You are indeed worthy of praise. Sin will be punished, the righteous will be rewarded, Your people redeemed to the praise of your glory. You are indeed worthy of praise. Grant by your grace that we would praise you, that you might be praised everywhere, that you might be praised for who you are and for what you've done. That you might be praised with every instrument that we can bring to bear, that you might be praised passionately, and that you might be praised in word and in song. This is our prayer when we offer it in the name of Jesus, Oh is the Christ. Amen.