Songs Of Praise

Songs of Praise

Psalm 145:1-2

I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

David's Psalm Of Praise.

Often in the book of Psalms there is a preface that names the songwriter or gives insight into the circumstance from which the Psalm was born. Our selection tonight, however, contains a preface that is both unique and striking. It is described as David’s Psalm of Praise. This Psalm, out of all of them, is the one Psalm of Praise that David has asserted a sense of possession over. It is David’s. It is his. This appears to have been David’s way of saying, “Of them all, this one is most precious to me.” It would seem appropriate tonight to call it David’s favorite song of praise. The only other Psalm that bears that same signature possessive notation by David is Psalm 86 and it is David’s Psalm of Prayer.

Psalm 145 is a song of praise; it is the song of the praise that flows from David’s own heart. This is the last of the Psalms that is directly attributed to David and some scholars believe that it was written at the end of David’s life as an effort to preserve David’s personal favorite song of praise. If that is so, the praise contained therein is the best of praise because it flows from the depths of David’s life experience. It was seasoned praise. Praise that has known both the valleys and the mountains, praise that has known both victories and defeats, praise that has been the object of God’s affection and the subject of God’s judgment.

Perhaps most notable however is the possessive nature of it. This is David’s song of praise. We may take it tonight as a model and aim at making our own personal praise as much, like it as possible but it should be noted that even your best imitation of it will not equal it. You have a unique praise. There is a song of praise that belongs to you and you alone. There is a song of victory and triumph, a song of perseverance and endurance, a song about God’s incredible provision that only you can sing. Every instrument gives rise to a unique sound. The piano tuner may tweak each note to bring them each as close as possible to the standard, but each instrument gives birth to a sound that is uniquely its own. So it is with your praise, your praise belongs to you! It flows from your experience, it is the result of your trials and triumphs and it is a song that only you can sing. One of the most important lessons to be learned in this Psalm tonight is to be grasped before we even get into the text of it. Each of us has a song of praise. And each of us is responsible for singing our own song of praise. If you don’t sing it, no one else will. If you don’t thank God for all he has done for you, no one else will. Because, no one can praise him like you can!

Tonight we are only going to address the first 2 verses of Psalm 145 but the whole of the Psalm is highly recommended as a song of praise:

I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

Praise

The first two verses of David’s favorite song of praise contain 4 statements of things he will do in regards to his praise. This evening we will address these four things that David says, “I will” do.

1. I will extol thee, my God, O king.

• First of all he says, I will extol thee, my God, O king.

• To extol is to set on high. It means to exalt above all others, to give something first place, or to assign it the highest priority. It is the expression of the greatest possible admiration. This is where David starts his personal song of praise. He says to God, you are my king. I will extol you. I will exalt you. I will build you a throne in my life. I will set you before everything else!

• This is the expression of David’s high opinion of God. He is saying, at the outset, I will set God up in my life as the object of all my praise. No matter what else is going on in my life. God gets first place.

• Remember, this is David at the end of his years. He hasn’t always given God that preeminent place in his life and he’s paid dearly for it. But now, he makes this strong statement at the beginning of his song of praise, “You, God, are my king and I will exalt you. I extol you!”