Introduction

My desire, for you and I, is to come to a place where God is more and more treasured in our lives. As a church, I believe that God is increasingly growing us to a place where He is becoming so big and so important in our lives that all other people, possessions and problems are looking smaller and smaller when we compare them to His infinite worth and unlimited power.

However, I’ve found that genuine affections for God can’t really be stirred up by a preacher standing up front and giving you a guilt trip about how you should love God more. Deeper affections for God spring from a fountain of truth about who God is, based on His inerrant and infallible Word. The highest praise of God is to declare what He is. There is no better way to stir up our affections for the Lord than to stare right at Him as he reveals himself in His Word and begin to be overwhelmed with the description of His character.

So this morning, I’m not going to be satisfied with telling you that you should praise God more (although that is true), but I’m going to tell you why. From this passage, I want to give you four compelling reasons why our minds attention and hearts affection should be consumed with the praises of our God and King.

The first and most foundational reason that we have to praise God is that He conceived of everything we know to be reality. Genesis 1:2 tells us that before God began His work of creation, “ 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.”

God conceived the universe, when there was nothing there before. He invented the building blocks of amino acids and proteins and atoms and carbon. He decided what things would look like and that space should be dark and planets should be round. He came up with the idea of light and He thought some light sources would be helpful, so He invented nuclear reactions. Then, with his fingers, he placed those flaming torches in the sky that we call “stars.”

He conceived the angels and the spirit world and then He brought it into being. He dreamed up thousands upon thousands of different kinds of animals and plants and then carefully crafted each one. He imagined a life form with the ability to choose and called it man. He came up with the design of man. He created a perfect environment for man to live in. He invented the food that grows up out of the dirt. (And some of it tastes like pizza). He created atmosphere for us to breath. Then out of the elements that He called into existence, he formed man and did what no scientist can ever replicate – he breathed life into the man’s body.

It cannot be over-emphasized or over-stated how in debt we are to God for creating us in the first place. All of creation is in debt to God because He made it. Nothing would exist without Him. If God did nothing else but form our being, we would be bound with a debt of gratitude to Him for all of our existance. When was the last time that you and I just praised that Lord for giving us life?

We Praise God Because:

#1 He Created Us

Look at the first 5 verses of our passage. In these first 5 verses, we see our role among creation and the angels in praising God.

148 Praise the Lord!

It’s not a suggestion. It’s not an invitation. It is a command with no option. You and I were made to worship. Listen as the psalmist calls out all of creation to praise God, starting with the angels:

Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!

2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!

What you and I have in common with an angel is that we were all created by God. We are all creatures. We don’t know much about angels, but we know these beings are powerful, they are perfect in character and they are God’s servants and messengers. One angel in the Old Testament was enough to defeat an 185,000 man army in one night – and the Lord has legions of these creatures. They have seen enough of the Lord’s works to give them endless reasons to declare God’s praises. So the psalmist calls them out:

  • You have been in the presence of God
  • You’ve seen more than us
  • You lead all of creation in praise to our corporate maker! You Lead us, angels!

BUT, it’s not just living beings that were made to declare God’s praises. Planets and stars and clouds and storms were all conceived in the mind of God. Each one is magnificent and has God’s signature written all over it. And every star and planet and cloud is in a debt of gratitude to its creator (just for making it exist). If it wasn’t for God’s perfectly creative work, no sun or planet or skyline would ever exist

3 Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
4 Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord!
For he commanded and they were created.

Let stop there because that last line in verse 5 is really significant. The basis for all of our worship is founded upon the fact that God made us. You all know Genesis 1:1, but don’t let your familiarity with that passage rob you of it’s significance. Genesis 1:1 says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

  • It wasn’t there before.
  • There had never been anything like it before.
  • There were not even the raw materials to make a heaven and an earth.
  • God started from nothing and brought it all into being.

The Bible is plain about the origin of the universe. God was there when He formed the universe and He tells us how it happened. He is a trustworthy eyewitness. God is so holy that He is incapable of telling a lie. The Bible says in Romans 4:17 that God, “calls into existence the things that do not exist” In other words, God created the universe by commanding it into being. God’s commands are so powerful that when He tells something to exist, it appears. The great mystery of creation is how God made something out of nothing. We don’t know how He did it, but this fact remains:

  • “For he commanded and they were created.” (verse 5) God commanded it, and it came into being
  • God can issue a command that is so powerful that if nothing is there to obey the command, His words in themselves create something out of nothing.

We don’t have a file for words being this powerful. Our words have totally limited power. If I walked up to my refrigerator, opened it up and command a taco to come out, it would never happen. Even if all the fixings for tacos were in the fridge, they would never form a taco just by the authority of my command. God’s not like us. When God commands something, it happens.

God’s very words contain limitless power! The more we grasp the extent of God’s power, the more humble we become and the more prone we are to declare his praises – because He is so much greater than we are!

But God’s involvement in our lives does not begin and end with his creative brilliance. He did not set the world into motion in order to watch it run by itself. God is actively sustaining His creation. Look at verse 6

6 And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.

When God gives a command, it does not cease to exist until He tells it to stop. He is sustaining His creation. Before the formation of the earth, there were no laws of physics. God created the laws that govern the universe and nature is bound to perfectly obey God’s physical laws.

What would happen if God did not sustain the laws of nature? Imagine if there was even an hour when the law of gravity was no longer in affect. Chaos would reign! We’d float off the planet. The earth would be flung into outer space. Oceans would disappear into the sky.

However, the continual order of everything in the universe remains an ongoing testimony to God’s sustaining power! We praise God because He sustains us.

#2 He Sustains Us

Every second of our existence we owe to the sustaining power of God’s commands. There is no creature on the planet that does not owe his continued existence to the power of God’s ongoing preservation. The writer of Hebrews testifies to that fact in Hebrews 1:3 when he says, “he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

God commands you to exist. If He no longer commanded you to exist, you’d be gone. The only barrier between you being you and you being nothing is God’s command that you exist. We have not even begun to explore or to even understand the depths of what Jesus meant when he said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matt 4:4)

Scriptures do not treat creation as a finished act, but that God’s word is continually holding creation together moment by moment. Speaking of the animals that populate the earth, Psalm 104 explains that every new life is part of God’s ongoing work of sustaining His creation. “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.”

It is clear that God is involved in the formation of every infant when it says in psalm 139:13, “13 For you formed my inward parts;  you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” God was as intimately involved in the creation of each one of us as He was in the very first person who He formed out of the ground. The multiplication of cells in a fetus is completely governed by the all-preserving work of God.

The emergence of every new life-form on the planet is a result of God’s ongoing creating and sustaining power. Nothing appears on the planet that God did not command to exist and nothing remains here that God is not actively sustaining.

That gives reason for not just intelligent life (like men and angels) to praise the creator, but for every plant, animal and even landforms and elements to join the chorus of praise. In verse 7 that psalmist says:

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and mist,
stormy wind fulfilling his word!

[not even something as untamable and unpredictable as the wind is outside of God’s controlling and sustaining power]

9 Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Beasts and all livestock,
creeping things and flying birds!

….all to praise their maker. Why should all of nature praise God? Because He made nature, He rules over nature and He owns nature.   What God creates out of His own resources, He owns completely. Creation infers ownership. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,.” Everything in creation submits to the one who brought it into existence and who sustains it by the word of His power.

Remember when Jesus was asleep during the storm while He and the Disciples were out on the sea? The disciples thought they were going to drown. They were shocked that Jesus was not concerned, and was sound asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat. They woke him up and said in Mark 14:38, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

It was not that Jesus did not care. The fact was that Jesus was completely in control. Nature always submits to Him because He owns it. Verse 39 says

39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

This was yet another proof that Jesus is God. He alone sets the rules. He alone can break the rules. All of nature submits to his rules and recognizes him as the most powerful power in the universe. We praise God because He is the most powerful power in the universe

#3 He is the most powerful power in the universe

Sometimes mankind does not fully understand how powerful God is and they try to do things their own way. Political leaders, because of their position of power and influence, are especially susceptible to ignoring God’s power. [You and I should be praying for our politicians on a regular basis. They face overwhelming temptations!]

But, the rest of us face the temptation to ignore God as well. All mankind if prone to push God aside while we pursue own own interests. The psalmist is calling all of us – from little child to powerful king – back to a right relationship with our creator.

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
12 Young men and maidens together,
old men and children!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his majesty is above earth and heaven.

Lara showed me an article written by a popular Christian singer this week who claimed that the creation account in God’s Word was overstated. It’s exaggeration. He claimed the Biblical account of creation was just too far-fetched. No intelligent person would ever believe it. He said that Genesis is as much fantasy as a Shakespearian play. {It’s about as true as Romeo and Juliet} He said that Genesis is a poetic analogy and not literal theology because God could not operate outside of the laws of physics and nature.

This singer did not understand that:

  • God made the laws of nature. God alone can break the laws of nature. That’s why we call him “supernatural”
  • If a God with unlimited power decides he going to create the universe in 6 days, he can easily achieve that feat with time left over (he could still put His feet up ad watch the game at the end of the day)
  • What made me most frustrated by this man’s comments is that He thought he could write worship songs about God while not believing what God’s Word says about Him.The highest praise of God is to declare the truth about who He is — as it is described in His Word. Any man who rewrites what the Bible has to say about God, is not exalting the Lord, but belittling Him.

I don’t think it is possible for us to make too much about who God is. I don’t believe it is possible for us to have a thought about God that is so magnificent that God’s actual power doesn’t far exceed our imagination. When you are dealing with the most powerful power in the universe, you are dealing with something that is greater than anything we have ever seen, conceived of or imagined before.

Then the thing that blows my mind about God every time I see it in His Word, is that He cares so much about His people…. About His creatures… We praise God because he is totally faithful to his People.

#4 He is Totally Faithful to His People

The psalmist writes in verse 14

14 He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his saints,
for the people of Israel who are near to him.
Praise the Lord!

Part of my calling as a preacher of the Word is to show God’s history with his people and to declare His faithfulness throughout the generations

  • Look at the creation that God brought His people into being out of nothing!
  • Look at the Flood and how God was faithful to preserve Noah and his family from being destroyed.
  • Look at how God used Joseph’s slavery as a means of gaining political power so that the nation of Israel would be preserved
  • Look at God delivering his people out of the grip of Pharaoh and supernaturally pulling back the Red Sea so they could cross on dry land.
  • Look at how God went before His people in battle time and time again and brought them victory against all possible odds.

I could go on and on about how God had been faithful in the nation of Israel. Even more compelling though, is how God is still faithful today. I can just as easily point to my own life and say:

  • Look how God paid provided a vehicles and housing and finances for my family
  • Look how God is growing His church both numerically and spiritually
  • Look at how God hears and answers the prayers of our intercessory prayer team
  • Look at how God sustained our health during long, difficult months of church planting

And the list goes on. God is totally faithful to his people and you and I, as God’s children, have so many things to praise God for.

BUT, I know there are some here this morning who are facing such a difficult time that they have a hard time seeing past their immediate circumstances to see the greatness of our God. Some of you might be asking, “if God is so great, why is my life so difficult.” Some people here might even be battling depression or discouragement.”

Life Application

News of Robin William’s tragic death this week shook up a lot of Americans. It’s hard for us to understand how a man who was so widely loved and who possessed such a talent for making us laugh was so depressed in his private life. It also brings to the forefront that many people are struggling with discouragement and depression all around us – and we might not even be aware of their struggles.

Some of you are going through some really difficult trials. I’m not telling you to grin and bear it and try to put on a fake smile through your clenched teeth. But I am telling you that God is bigger than your trials and his track record proves His faithfulness.

When we begin to focus on our burdens, they can block out our view of God. God wants to bring us to a place where He is becoming so big and so important in our lives that all other people, possessions and problems become smaller and smaller when we compare them to His infinite worth and unlimited power.

It takes intentionality to keep our focus on the Lord during the storms. The Bible calls God the great physician and He has given us a prescription for depression and discouragement in His word. Psalm 42:5 says

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation 6 and my God.

There are burdens that are crushing. There are mornings when discouragement, or sorrow, or despair are overwhelming. The Lord has a cure for these feelings. He is greater than our trials. He is the one who renews our minds and our minds are best renewed by looking at who He is in His word. So if you are feeling downcast, here are some places to look in scripture that will help to pull you out of your feelings of depression and to refocus your attention on the Lord

  1. The book of Ecclesiastes. For those of you familiar with the Bible, you might think this is a strange suggestion, but many people have really appreciated the honestly of this book when they are going through difficult times. Reading Ecclesiastes will show you that God’s Word deals with the bleakness of futility head on. Page after page, it reminds us that apart from God, we will not find hope in this age and then it points clearly back to God [who is our hope]
  2. The Book of John. The Gospel of John is full of hope. It shows Jesus as the source of light that penetrates the darkness of this world. John uniquely contrasts the light of Jesus’ character with the foreboding darkness of the sinful world He entered. When we are feeling despair, you and I need to concentrate on Jesus – the very source of light and life.
  3. The Psalms. When I’ve gone through difficult times, I’ve returned time and time again to this treasure in God’s Word. About ¼ of the Psalms were written to help God’s people deal with depression. The solid truth and the raw emotions in the psalms help us to know that we are not alone in our struggles and God is greater than any trouble we face.

When we being to see, to understand and to declare who God is, it changes us. Praise changes us.

When we see that God created us, He sustains us, he is the most powerful power in the universe and he is totally faithful, it gives us new hope to face our challenges.

 Teaching Outline

We Praise God Because:

#1 He Created Us – v 1-6, Genesis 1:1-2, Romans 4:17

#2 He Sustains Us – v 6-10, Hebrews 1:3, Matthew 4:4, Psalm 24, 104, 139,

#3 He is the Most Powerful Power in the Universe – v 11-13, Mark 14:38-41

#4 He is Totally Faithful to His People – v 14

Application

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation 6 and my God. Psalm 42:5

Places to look in scripture that will help to pull you out of your feelings of depression and to refocus your attention on the Lord

  1. The book of Ecclesiastes.
  2. The Book of John.
  3. The Psalms.

When we being to see, to understand and to declare who God is, it changes us. Praise changes us.