Reasons to Praise God

Yesterday we looked at the first two verses of Psalm 135 and the call to praise God, but let’s continue to look at the rest of the psalm. In verses 3-18 we are given the reason to praise the LORD. He gives us six reasons.

Verse 3, “Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing to His name, for it is pleasant!” Notice the little word “for.” It gives us the first reason and in it helps us throughout this section. We praise God because He is good.

In the Garden, Satan came to Adam and Eve and tempted them along these very lines…you won’t surely die, God knows that if you eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you’ll be just like Him. He is holding out on you, He is trying to keep you down, He isn’t being good to you…we’ve swallowed that line ever since.

The beginning of praise is to know the goodness of God. God is good…all the time; all the time…God is good. We don’t always see the goodness of every action…we are not omniscient, we don’t see the eternal ramifications of what He is doing, but we must start here…praise God from whom all blessings flow. Every good and perfect gift you have is from above…praise God because He is good.

Notice, it is pleasant when you do this. It is pleasant to praise God…if you are walking without joy or happiness…start by praising Him and reminding yourself of His goodness and the good things He has done.

Second, we praise God because He first loved you. That’s what John says in 1 John 4:19, “We love God because He first loved us.” In verse 4, “For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as His own possession.” Paul uses this same logic in Romans…why Jacob? God chose Jacob over his brother Esau while they were still in the womb…before they had done anything good or bad. They had the same parents—it wasn’t like Ismael and Isaac. Jacob was the younger of the two—the older was supposed to be the chosen son. Why Jacob? It is the mystery of God…but Deuteronomy 7:6-8 takes up the idea of God choosing the entire nation…, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

God’s choice was a choice of love and grace and it is left within the mystery of His own decisions but make no mistake just as God chose them—the NT says He chose you and that is a humbling thing of which should constantly be a matter of praise from your lips. Praise Him for He is good. Praise Him for He first loved you.

Third, praise Him for He is sovereign. Look at verses 5-7, “For I know that the LORD is great, and that our LORD is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.” Simply put…the fact that God is sovereign means He is on the Thone and He is in charge. That is a matter worthy of our praise…especially when we consider that this comes after the first two.

Imagine a God fully sovereign who isn’t good. Imagine a God fully sovereign who doesn’t love. But imagine a good and loving God on the Throne moving this world toward His own purposes. Look no further than the exercise of His providence as he moved from man’s first sin to the cross and ultimately to the New Heaven and the New Earth. His sovereignty is a reason for great praise…He is the King, we are in His kingdom, and His kingdom is advancing.

Fourth, praise Him because He is our Savior. In verses 8-12, the psalmist takes us from Egypt to the Promised Land. Verse 4 took us back to God’s choosing of Jacob—Jacob’s 12 sons made up the Tribes of Israel. They would eventually go to Egypt where God had already sent Joseph to rescue them. 400 years later God used Moses to lead them out of Egypt, that’s verses 8-9, then in verses 10-11 we have God moving in them to strike down and judge the pagan nations, and in verse 12 we find God bringing them to the land He promised Abraham. God saved them and provided for them and that is worthy of praise.

God took Abram by the hand and called him, Abram obeyed, and God gave him a son by the name of Isaac. Isaac had twins sons—Esau and Jacob—God chose Jacob and through him God provided the 12 Tribes…the land God promised was delivered…God saved His people.

God saves us…He is good, He is loving, He is sovereign in our lives, and He redeems us…that is worthy of our praise! Many of these same examples are repeated in Psalm 136 and every single verse repeats this line, “for His steadfast love endures forever.”

Come back tomorrow and we will look at the other reasons to praise Him!