The psalm we just heard gives a pretty clear message. We’re supposed to praise the Lord. The word “praise” shows up thirteen separate times in that psalm.
It’s not just us who are supposed to praise the Lord, either. All of creation is supposed to do it. The angels are supposed to praise the Lord. The sun, the moon, and the stars are supposed to praise the Lord. The mountains and the trees are supposed to praise the Lord. All animals, birds, sea creatures, and all other things that are involved in creation are supposed to praise the Lord.
The idea that we’re supposed to praise the Lord is nothing new to most of us, of course. We’ve heard that for a long time. I think sometimes, though, we hear some of these things so often that we take them for granted and never stop to think about why we’re told to do them. So, why is it that we’re told so many times in the Bible to praise the Lord?
This is important, because it’s one of the things people who don’t believe in God will use to make fun of Christians. They’ll ask, “What’s the deal with having to tell God how great he is all the time? Is God vain? Is God so insecure that God needs to constantly hear your praise? Or are you trying to butter up God so you can get God to give you whatever you want? If God is so great and so perfect, why does God need to hear you say so all the time? God should know who God is.”
Well, of course, God does know perfectly well who God is. God is not vain or insecure. God is complete and perfect, and as such, God has no need to be reassured by anything we say.
Still, if we’re going to bring people to Christ, it’s important that we know how to answer that criticism. It’s important for ourselves that we know how to answer it, too. If we don’t, then when we hear these criticisms, doubts are going to creep in, because we’re thinking creatures. So, if God does not need to hear our praise, why are we told so often to give it?
We’re told to give God praise because we need to give it. We need to think our praises to God, we need to speak them, and we need to feel them. We need to do that so we’ll remember who God is and remember how dependent we are on God.
One of our human tendencies is to think more highly of ourselves than we should. It’s really easy for us to start thinking that anything good that happens is because of what we’ve done. It’s sort of like the old joke about the rooster who thought his crowing was what caused the sun to rise in the morning. We find it really easy to take credit for anything good that happens, whether we actually had anything to do with it or not.
The thing about that is that it leads to arrogance, and arrogance leads to all kinds of bad behavior. Arrogance demands that we get our own way. Arrogance keeps us from thinking about other people. Arrogance tells us to do whatever we want to do, rather than trying to do what God wants us to do. Arrogance tells us that it’s our will that should be done, rather than God’s will.
The fact is that we can do nothing unless God allows it. In fact, nothing even exists without God. As the psalm says, God commanded, and all was created. God’s decrees will never pass away.
That last statement alone should take care of any arrogance we have: God’s decrees will never pass away. Can we humans do anything that will never pass away? A lot of people have thought so. People have amassed fortunes. People have achieved world-wide fame. People have created huge empires and achieved all kinds of power. Yet, eventually it all goes away. Every empire that has ever been created on this earth has eventually fallen. How many names of people who were famous only a hundred years ago would we still recognize today? As for wealth, well, we’ve all heard the old saying “you can’t take it with you”, and we all know that it’s true.
God commanded, and all was created. Anything good that ever happens is from God. Whether God acted directly or indirectly, it is still from God. God is the source of all goodness on this earth.
That’s why we praise God. Not because God needs to hear the praise, but because we need to give it. We need to remember every day that God is the source of all greatness, and God is the source of all goodness. When we say that, and when we acknowledge it, we can avoid the behavior that comes from arrogance. Instead, we can remember that we are God’s people, and are called to do God’s will. By remembering that, we can be the people God wants us to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment