Why should we praise God?
[Psalms 47]
It is often said that praise speak of three powers: First, praise is ‘the power to go up’. Praise is the power to go up means that praise functions as bringing us closer to God by praising Him. The praise as the power to go up may be called ‘the guide of faith'. Second, praise is ‘the power to penetrate into our hearts’. The praise that brings us comfort, peace, repentance, joy, determination, and courage is the power to penetrate our hearts. The praise that comes to our hearts and gives us joy and courage is ‘the guide of hope’. Third and last, praise is ‘the power to go out’. The praise that arouses faith and hope has another important function. It is ‘the guide of love', which is the power that goes out. The praise comforts our sad hearts, comforts our hearts when we are depressed, gives us thankful hearts, and organizes the messy thoughts. Those who sing praise vigorously during worship are those whose hearts are concentrated on God and who are moved by the worship. Therefore, if we want to overflow with grace, we have to praise God (Internet).
We are to give this powerful praise to God. What is the reason? Why should we praise God? I want to look for three reasons in Psalms chapter 47. I hope and pray that we will be able to praise God with right reasons.
First, we must praise God because God is the Lord Most High.
Look at Psalms 47: 2, 9b – “For the LORD Most High is to be feared, A great King over all the earth. … For the shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.” What does “the Lord Most High” mean? It means that God is the Most High God and the most precious God. We must not forget God's "dignity" in praising the Most High God. It means that God is the object of our awe. In other words, we must be reverent in our hearts when we praise the Most High God. Despite this being natural, I think we are more liberal than being in awe in praising God. In other words, we forget our position in praising the Lord Most High and think that we can praise Him freely and comfortably. Let's think about it. Isn't it natural for the lowest being to have awe in praising the Lord Most High?
Is the praise given to the Lord Most High already exalted to the Most High, or is it to exalt ourselves? I remember the story of the Israelites during the Exodus time in which the Israelites made a golden calf, “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exod. 32:6) and dancing (v. 19) when Moses was on Mount Sinai. I am concerned that maybe we are praising the Lord Most High by eating, drinking, singing, and dancing like the Israelites. We need to apply John 3:30 in praising the Lord Most High: “"He must increase, but I must decrease.” In other words, in praising the already Most High Lord, we must decrease. We must be lowered and smaller.
We must praise the Lord Most High humbly. I remember the chorus of the hymn “How Great Thou Art”: “Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee How great Thou art, How great Thou art Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee How great Thou art, How great Thou art.”
Second, we must praise God because He is the Lord who loves us the most.
Look at Psalms 47:4 – “He chooses our inheritance for us, The glory of Jacob whom He loves. Selah.” God's love was to choose the Israelites and give ‘the glory of Jacob’ that is an inheritance, the promised land of Canaan. This God's choice is the ultimate love of God for the ones whom He chose (Park). That is why the Bible says in Ephesians 1:3-4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love.” We who are chosen by God and who are God's most loved ones must praise God. The reason is because God chose us in Christ so that we would be to the praise of His glory (v. 12). In other words, we, who are the chosen, exist for the praise of God's glory' (Park). The ultimate purpose of our redemption is to praise God's glory.
Therefore, we must praise God's saving grace. We must praise Him with joyful heart, using the musical instrument to sing praises (Ps. 47:5). I remember the hymn “The Love of God is Greater Far” verse 1 and chorus: “The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell; It goes be-yond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from His sin. Oh love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forever more endure, The saints' and an gels' song.”
Third and last, we must praise God because God is the King who reigns over us.
Look at Psalms 47:8 – “God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” We must praise God because He who sit on the holy throne is “A great King” (v. 2), “the King of all the earth” (v. 7) who reigns over the nations (v. 8). The Bible exhorts us to: “Sing praises to God, sing praises; Sing praises to our King, sing praises” (v. 6). The reason why we, who are Abraham God’s people, are gathered to praise God as King is because the Lord our God is protecting us. Look at verse 9: “The princes of the people have assembled themselves as the people of the God of Abraham, For the shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.”
We are to praise our King and our God with “a skillful psalm” (v. 7). This means that we should praise God with the heart of wisdom that knows God rightly. This is indeed important. The reason is because we aren’t praising God based on the right knowledge of God. There is danger of pleasing ourselves instead of God in emotional praise that isn’t based on the right knowledge of God. We must praise God, our King. I remember the gospel song “I bless You my God the King”: “I will exalt You, My God the King; I will praise Your Name for ever and ever.”
As I was meditating on Psalms chapter 47, it reminded me the hymn “My Life Flows Rich in Love and Grace.” This hymn was wrote and composed by Robert Lowry (1826~1899). This is how the song goes: (v. 1) “My life flows on in endless song; above earth’s lamentation, I catch the sweet, though far off hymn that hails a new creation,” (v. 2) “Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing. It finds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?” (v. 3) “What though my joys and comforts die? I know my Savior liveth. What though the darkness gather round? Songs in the night he giveth,” (v. 4) “The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing! All things are mine since I am his! How can I keep from singing?” and (Refrain) “No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?” As I read the part of this song “My life flows on in endless song”, I thought that our praise and our lives cannot be cut off or be separated. So let’s praise the Lord Most High who loves us the most and who reigns over us as our King until we have the last breath in this earth.
Enjoying the grace in praising God,
Pastor James Kim