Do enjoy looking at beautiful houses? After driv¬ing by or actually being inside one of these marvelous lakefront mansions around here, have you ever extolled the beauty of these places?
Now, I’m not going to ask for a show of hands here, but how many of you here, as either an agent of the county government or an insurer, are qualified to take a clipboard, examine every nook and cranny of that house, and to make a detailed inspection of that house and render an expert opinion on the value of that house in order that your local state government can extract money from the owner for the privilege of living in that house? In other words, how many of us are qualified to be assessors? It’s one thing to admire a house, but it’s another thing entirely to appraise a house.
Now, let’s switch things around here a little bit. How many of you like music? How many of you LOVE music? How many of you here this morning can play a musical instrument? Now, I might be splitting hairs here, but more than playing an instrument, how many of you here this morning are musicians? You see, there’s a difference between playing an instrument and being a musician.
Dr. Charlotte Giles, who taught your pastor and your choir director the finer points of music theory and counterpoint —and who, incidentally, once spent an entire class period ranting about how music from the rococo period should NOT be included with music from the baroque period and about exploded when a student asked if music from the marshmallow period should also be excluded from the rococo period—once told us that you could train a gorilla to play a piano, but that didn’t necessarily make the goril¬la a pianist.
Psalm 150 tells us that we need to move beyond being admirers of God, someone who drives by God and says, “Wow, isn’t God something special?” and to move into the position of an assessor: someone who is familiar with the nooks and crannies of the Almighty.
In the same manner, Psalm 150 also encourages us to move beyond singing “Are You Washed In The Blood?” while we take our morning shower and to put on our choir robes and join the King’s Singers.
Psalm 150 is the Psalm takes us beyond the occasional “isn’t God swell?” and into the very pinnacles of praise.
Another thing that Dr. Giles used to ask is, “What is the difference between a piano player, a pianist (pro¬nounced pea-ANN-ist) and a pianist (pronounced PEA-an-ist)?” Well, the piano player plays in his living room and receives no monetary amenities for his efforts. The piANNist might play in a smoky bar somewhere and collect what the local drunks toss in the tip jar. But a PEA-anist will wear a formal gown (or a tux, but these days it often doesn’t matter), perform with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and make a half-million bucks a year. Just as there are differences between a piano player and a pianist and a pianist, there’s a big difference between mouthing God’s praises with an occasional musical note thrown in, and actually SINGING God’s praise.
The first word of Psalm 150 is praise: “PRAISE ye the Lord.” Again, there’s a big difference between what we think is praise and what is really praise. When we think of praise, we think perhaps of the praise you give a kid learning to ride a bicycle, the kind of praise that’s an encouragement. At the annual meeting with her student’s parents, a good teacher will always begin the session by praising the student. She will tell the parents some encouraging things about their sweet young brat BEFORE she tells them what a hellion the kid really is.
So when we praise God, we are not just saying, “Hey God, You’re not bad.” To praise God in the proper sense is to be an assessor of God; it is to be an appraiser of God. Let’s say you want to put your home on the market and to get every penny you can get out of it. The first step is to get the house appraised. Let’s say your Aunt Mildred leaves a diamond ring to you after she’s gone up to Glory. You need to know whether to put it in your jewelry box as a cherished heirloom or to place it in the 25-cent bin at your garage sale. In order to ascertain its value, you take the ring to a jeweler and have it appraised. In the same way, to praise God in the proper term is to appraise Him, to let Him and others know God’s infinite worth. It is to express a familiarity of and an appreciation of all who God is.
“Praise ye the Lord,” the first verse in Psalm 150 tells us. Just don’t mouth His praise. Just don’t mum¬ble His praise. And in the same manner, don’t just say nice things about God: go further. Know the God you’re praising. Be familiar with Him. Appraise Him.
“Praise God in His sanctuary.” Praise, the assigning of God’s value, the appraisal of His being begins here, in the sanctuary of the heart; it moves next to the place where we assemble for worship together, in this sanctuary. That’s why, no matter what comprises the service—beit a typical Baptist service with three hymns, a collection and a 45-minute sermon, or a full-blown highly liturgical affair with a sung Kyrie and kneeling and standing and a full choir and a room filled with incense—the focus of those assembled should always be on God and on God’s infinite worth. The relationship with God always begins with praise in the heart, then moves on to praise with other Christians.
But it goes even further than that. How many of you know that church just isn’t here on Sunday morn¬ing? Church takes place beyond these walls. Worship is to take place “out there.” So the Psalm then says, take it from the shower to the sanctuary and out into the world. “Praise Him in the firmament of His pow¬er.” That’s what the Psalmist means by the firmament; it means the entirety of creation. Wherever you are, God is.
So when we praise God, we are making an assessment of His worth, of His value, of Who He is in and of Himself. But the Psalm takes it even further than that. He tells us, “Praise God for His mighty acts: praise Him according to His excellent greatness.” In other words, praise God for what He does, for His acts, for when we praise God for His acts, it’s a timely thing and a timeless thing. We praise God for what He has done: past tense. Praise God for all that He has done in creating the heavens and the earth. Praise God for being active in history to this point.
But there’s a present tense as well: praise God for what He is DOING in our lives at this very moment. The book of Hebrews tells us “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12)”
And, because we praise God for what He’s done and what He’s doing, we can also praise Him for what He will be doing, future tense. Because He’s acted in the past and is acting in the present, we can take com¬fort and hope that there will never be a time, future tense, that He will NOT be acting and active.
And here’s where it gets interesting. It’s here we move from singing in the shower to singing in the sanct¬uary. It’s here where we move from the amateur to the professional, because the very act of praise entails a profession. I profess, I exclaim, I state categorically that God is great. It’s not just something on your “to-do” list, it moves from a choice you make and into the realm of the lifestyle.
So, we praise God in the heart, we praise God with our voice. Yet there are times when even those things are inadequate, for the Psalmist tells us to become musicians. “Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet: praise Him with the psaltery and harp. Praise Him with the timbrel and dance: praise Him with string¬ed instruments and organs. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals: praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals.”
I go crazy when I don’t have a musical instrument at my disposal. I can go a couple of days with¬out one, but afterwards I will go into spasm if I don’t have a guitar or a banjo or a Dobro or a keyboard of some kind.
Psalm 150 describes an orchestra. An instrumental ensemble of brass, percussion and winds is called a band. But it’s not an orchestra. The same thing can be said of an ensemble of a keyboard, guitars and drums. You can have an ensemble of a first violin, second violin, viola and cello and call it a quartet. But an orchestra is an ensemble containing ALL of the categories of instruments: brass, percussion, winds, strings and keyboard. Sometimes they even throw in the kitchen sink: literally. That’s when you move from piano player to pianist. It’s when you pull out all the stops and move from soft to normal to loud and then there crescendo after crescendo of praise lofting all over creation. That’s the kind of praise God’s looking for.
We talked about the difference between a piano player and a pianist and a pianist. We talked before about flute players: what’s the difference between a flutist and a flautist? About $50,000 a year. And final¬ly, what’s the difference between a musician and a sav¬ings bond? Well, a savings bond matures and makes money.
That’s why God wants us to move beyond an occasional kind remark thrown His way and get to that point where every day, every hour, every waking mo¬ment is a living, breathing crescendo of praise to the Almighty.
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