- Read Psalm 136 from the ESV.
- Read my Psalm 136 poem from A New Song.
THAT we are to praise the Lord should be obvious. WHY we should praise the Lord is probably just as obvious. And HOW to praise him…well, shouldn’t that be just as obvious? Don’t we just open our mouth and tell God how wonderful he is and how great that makes me feel? Well…sort of. But I think there might be a little bit more to praise than that.
Take, for example, prayer. Jesus didn’t hope that we would figure it out, he gave us an example: The Lord’s Prayer. He thought prayer important enough that he took the time to tell us how to pray. And even though people don’t pay much heed to The Lord’s Prayer today unless they are singing it in church or reciting it during special times of the year, it is still the example Jesus gave us for prayer. Jesus, the Son of God – very God himself – told us “This is how you pray…” which should mean that we should pay attention to his example.
And while the words “This is how you should praise God” don’t appear anywhere in scripture, as far as I know, I believe Psalm 134, 135, and 136 fills that same role for praise that The Lord’s Prayer does for prayer. Psalm 134 tells us THAT we are to praise him. It tells us that servants of the LORD are to lift our hands and praise the LORD. And while this certainly gives us a posture for praise, beyond that, there is not much content in Psalm 134 like the Lord’s Prayer indicating how to praise him.
Psalm 135 tells us WHY we are to praise the Lord. We are told to praise God because he is good, because he chose Jacob and Israel to be his own, because he is greater than all other gods, and because he does whatever he pleases in heaven and on earth. We are told to praise him because he led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land, and because he is alive and active unlike every god formed by the hand of man. These are all reasons WHY we should praise the LORD.
But in Psalm 136 we find an example of HOW to praise God. Whether it is a formula, however, I don’t know. But I do know God gave very specific commands in the Old Testament as to how his people were to approach him, how they were to sacrifice, and how not to do those things. From the very beginning, God has informed his people that they must approach him in a very specific way. Remember that Able’s sacrifice was acceptable in God’s eyes and Cain’s wasn’t. Brave consequences awaited those ignoring God’s rules on how to approach him. God tells Moses in Deuteronomy 12:8, “You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit.” The way of God is that people must follow the ways of God.
With regard to praise, Psalm 136 tells us a number of things. First, we see the words, “for his steadfast love endures forever” repeated 26 times in this psalm. While this may not mean we have to say those words every other line in our praises, it does mean that we must recognize God’s eternal and steadfast love as the reason for every one of God’s works. Every time God does something on earth it is because of his eternal (lasting forever; longer than time itself) and steadfast (never changing; never waning) love. There are no coincidences, happenstances, or mistakes – everything happens because God loves us. God has eternally and single-mindedly orchestrated everything on earth because of his love. And if nothing else is said, that alone is worthy of praise!
The second thing Psalm 136 reveals is the progression of praise. God is praised because he is good — he is THE GOD and THE LORD above anyone or anything else — he is praised for being himself.
God is praised because he doesn’t sit idly by outside of time and space watching the days go by, but he actively involves himself in this world. He does great wonders; he created the heavens, the earth, the waters, the sun, and the moon. God’s active power is the reason this physical world operates the way it does. When it rains, it is because he willed it; when it doesn’t rain, God has his reasons for that as well.
God is praised because he takes care of his people. He removed them from Egypt and protected them; he devastated Israel’s enemies, both in Egypt and those occupying his Promised Land; and he gave them their new home — their inheritance — freeing them from enemies and providing food and sustenance for all.
God is praised — the God of heaven — because he is eternally good, all the time!
God is praised because of what he has done. We do not praise him because he makes us feel good, though we should feel content that his will is being done. We praise God — the LORD, the covenant-making God, Jehovah — for his steadfast eternal love. We praise him for creating the universe. We praise him for leading us away from our enemies. We praise him for protecting us as we journey to his promised land. And we praise him for how he sustains us along the way.
One last comment before I close this. I would challenge you to take the time to write out Psalm 136 in your own handwriting. Don’t type it, text it, or tweet it – write it out. And when you get to the end of verse 26…add another verse about what God has done in your life. Ask yourself what he has done for you and then write the answer to that question. It doesn’t have to be more than a short sentence starting this way, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he __________” and then fill in the blank. THEN — and this is important — write the following words on the next line, “for his steadfast love endures forever.” Then add another verse…and another… You might want to keep this nearby so you can add verses to your praise psalm every time you see what God has done for you. And when you find yourself at the end of your life…this journal — your journal — of what God has done for you might be the most valuable possession you have to pass onto the next generation so they can see how God has worked in the lives of those who have come before them.
Give thanks to the God of heaven!
His steadfast love endures forever!
