For several weeks now we’ve been in the middle of a sermon series studying the Psalms. We’ve seen psalms that teach us to put our trust in God, psalms that cry out in desperation to God, psalms that help us to deal with our enemies, and this morning we turn our attention to Psalm 98 – a psalm of praise.

Since I began thinking about this, a month or two ago, I took a group of students out on retreat to Whidbey Island. And gathered around a fire singing and praising, praying together, playing games around the table, cooking together, doing life together, it was pretty easy for my thoughts to turn to praise in a setting like that.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been in conversation with four couples - young couples – who are preparing to be married, and beginning the steps of premarital counseling with some of them. And again, it’s pretty easy for thoughts to turn to praise in that setting.

But along the way, other things have happened, too. The news in Washington and out of Wall Street has continued to get much worse. And I’ve spoken with some of you who have lost jobs and are living in fear. It’s harder to think about praise in times like that.

I’ve a group of friends from seminary that for many years now have been meeting twice a year to read and to pray and to study and to laugh, sometimes fish. And I got word a little over a week ago that one of them had a tumor. And on Monday, we got the news that it was cancer. It’s hard to get ready to preach on praise with news like that.

Why do we praise God? And what does praise do?

Reading: Psalm 98.

For several weeks I’ve been asking myself a question. Why should we praise God? Now, I know on one hand, many of us will think that praise is something that God asks us to do. And so, if God asks it, that’s reason enough. And I agree. But there are many other reasons why we praise.

I read an article recently by Rolf Jacobson called The Costly Loss of Praise. He’s concerned that the church in general is losing its ability to praise God. And in losing its ability to praise, it’s lost several very important things – which will talk about in just a minute.

I want to pick up on his ideas but turn it slightly. Rather than asking “What has the church lost?”, because I’m not sure I fully agree with him on that point. Instead I want to ask “What does the church gain? What does the church gain as it grows in its ability to praise?” Or, “What do we learn as we sit in the school of praise?”

I want to suggest that, when God’s people praise, at least four things happen.

First, praise helps us to see the world clearly. It helps us to see the world as it really is, not as we might feel in the present moment.

I keep an encouragement file. I do it because there are moments when I face discouragement – either in life or in ministry, my perception gets myopic. I see the negative and discouraging things, but I forget about some of the others. And so I open up my file and I read about times when God showed up. When people’s lives were changed around me. When I sensed that God was at work in my life and in the lives of others.

It’s not an attempt to forget about my current thoughts. But it’s an attempt to see the whole picture – that even when I don’t sense it, God is good, and God is powerful, that God has brought good things into my life and the same God still reigns in the world today.

Our text today says, “Sing to the Lord a new song. He has done marvelous things.”

When I began thinking about the marvelous things that God has done in the past, I can’t help but think about what God might do in the present. I mentioned just a minute ago my friend who has a tumor. And if I spend much time thinking about what it might be like to lose him as a friend, I get pretty overwhelmed.

But as I think about this psalm, I’m encourage to remember times when God has broken through in the past. When He brought healing to my cousin, who was suffering from Hodgkin’s Disease and was miraculously healed. And the doctors can only attribute it to a miracle. Or I think about the time when I had a dream of a vision that helped me when I was trying to make a difficult decision. Thinking about things like this brings a bigger picture to mind as I think about my friend.

So praise opens our eyes up to help us see the world as it really is. Praise also helps us to see ourselves clearly.

I have a friend who’s a pastor in the U.K. He was watching a broadcast of Tony Blair, speaking to the people of England to be good citizens. And he was rattled. And he said, “But we are not citizens. We are subjects. We have a queen.”

There’s a difference between approaching life as a citizen and as a subject, isn’t there? A citizen can expect certain rights and liberties. A citizen approaches the world feeling entitled to certain things. A subject on the other hand is different. A subject owes service to his or her lord. A subject can usually assume that the lord will provide protection and provision. But the subject looks at the world a little bit differently.

You and I are trained from early on to see ourselves as citizens. To expect certain rights and privileges. And I’m grateful to be born into this country where we live. But I’m afraid that I pretty easily slip into feeling, without thinking about it, as if the kingdom of God might be a democracy too. As if I have certain things that I’m entitled to ask for.

You and I have a Lord and a King who we serve. He’s a good king, but He is the Lord. And we are His subjects. Scripture is given to us, then, not primarily as a way to inspire us, but in order to train us in a new way to live. We come to church not just simply hoping to feel better, but to offer our worship and allegiance to our king. The kingdom of God is a monarchy, and if we’re serious about claiming Jesus as Lord, then it might help us to see ourselves not as citizens but as subjects of our great king.

So praising helps us to see the world more clearly. It helps us to see ourselves more clearly. The third thing that happens as we sit in the school of praise is that our lives our turned to seeking justice.

Justice and God’s praise are intimately connected. To the marginalized, the thought that justice would be done invites praise. To those who in power, praising God – or remembering that we have a higher Lord – urges us to act with justice.

The promise of justice invites praise. Giving praise spurs us to do justice.

Years ago, I was involved in a small car accident. It wasn’t a big deal. Nobody was hurt. But there was about $600 of damage done to my car. It was a taxi driver who rear-ended me. When I called the company, they referred me to their insurance company. When I called the insurance company, they referred me to the manager. When I called him, he didn’t return my call.

Eventually I got the number of another guy who referred me to another guy who gave me the number for another guy. I could have taken these folks to small claims court, but the driver was driving under a temporary license, and I wasn’t even sure that it was the right information there. Court would have taken several days, which I couldn’t afford. It would have cost me some money. You see, they lived as if there were no law. That there was no one in authority over them. And I found myself stuck.

Most of us can think of times when we have been treated unfairly. And many of us have really experienced injustice. In this church, many of us have friends around the world who have truly been at the wrong end of injustice. So the idea then, that God would bring justice, seems pretty good.

But the other side of that is that we ourselves are often in power, aren’t we? And the reminder that we have a Lord tempers the way we behave.

When I was younger, I had a friend who had a swimming pool. And so, from time-to-time we would go over to his house. This one particular day there were 3 of us. One was swimming around in the water and two of us were standing out on the deck.

And being about 10-year-old boys, we had to concoct fun things to do. So we had the brilliant idea that we should use our friend who was in the water as target practice. There was a nice planter right next to the pool, filled with lots of perfectly sized dirt clods.

And so we thought this sounds like great fun. So for about 20 minutes, we were pelting away at our friend in the water with these dirt clods. Until the screen door opened up and his dad came out. And he took at one look at us, and we took one look at him, and we dropped those dirt clods pretty fast. You see, when I realized that there was somebody bigger than me who was paying attention, my behavior changed pretty fast.

It’s one thing to throw dirt clods into a swimming pool. It’s another thing entirely to think that someday we might sit face-to-face in the kingdom of God before people who remain in poverty, due to policies that make us rich. Or to think that we might someday have a conversation with somebody who grew up without a dad because he was killed in a war fought by our government. However just that the war may or may not be.

When we praise God, we are reminded that we live under a Lord who one day will make things right.

So praise helps us to see the world clearly. Helps us to see ourselves clearly. Praise encourages justice. And finally, praise invites God to be God.

We don’t see it as much in this particular psalm, but we see it so often in other psalms of praise that I have to mention it right now. The psalms often will insert lines into psalms of praise that challenge God to be God in a way that we might consider coercive, or even manipulative. They’ll list several lines speaking of the power and goodness of God, the way God has behaved so favorably towards His people, then insert a line that seems totally out of place. A cry for help. Or a call to action.

Think about Psalm 139. “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise up. You are acquainted with all my ways. It was you who formed my inmost parts. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And O, would you slay the wicked, O God?”

Does that ever seem out of place to you?

It does if the psalmist were saying, “God, you are the one who knows. You are the one who makes things right. You know me. You have been with me. I praise you, God, you have been so good. So why are you allowing these things to happen to me? Why are you allowing these wicked people to taunt me?”

And when we think for a few minutes about Israel’s history, we can see why these lines might come pretty easily.

Praise challenges God to be God. When we praise in a back door kind of way, we challenge God to be who He has claimed to be and who we need Him to be.

I had an Old Testament professor at Fuller whose wife was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. And he watched her slowly deteriorate. He taught my psalms class at Fuller. And maybe the most profound moment of the whole course was when he began to talk of psalms like this one, where praise turns to challenging God. And he said, “The amazing thing is that God seems to give his approval for this kind of praying. It’s like God is saying ‘Yes, that’s a good prayer. That one belongs in my book. That’s one that ought to teach generations and generations of people how to pray.’”

It’s amazing to me to think that God gives us the freedom to call Him to the mat. And so we pray things like, “God, you have called yourself a God of love. We need to see it in our lives.”, “God, you are a God of peace. Show up in peace. We need your peace.” And God seems to not only give us the freedom or the permission to pray this way, but He also gives us the very words to use.

So praise ...

1. helps us to see the world clearly
2. helps us to see ourselves clearly
3. encourages justice
4. gives us the ability to ask God to be who He claims to be

May we be a people who learn our lessons well as we sit before God in the school of praise.

Would you please pray with me?

God, we do give you thanks and praise. You have been so good to us in the past. We’re grateful for the things that you have done. Grateful that you have revealed yourself to us. We thank you for your son Jesus Christ who has done so much for us. And God many of us this morning cry out to you. God, we need you to be God in our lives. We pray it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.