Joseph R. Crider, Dean of the School of Church Music and Worship and James C. McKinney Chair of Church Music at Southwestern Seminary, preached from Psalm 150 in SWBTS Chapel on November 19, 2024.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
What a joy it is to rejoice with every breath in our bodies, let everything that breathes praise the Lord. Thank you so much. You may be seated well, as Dr Dockery said, as we conclude our series on the Psalms this morning, our faculty and our students in the school of church music would like to thank Dr Dockery for this incredible joy and privilege to do this. So thank you so much for the privilege of seeing the connections of several of the Psalms to the Psalm 150 you know, I was thinking about this, and Pastor Todd and I were talking about this, without the psalter, without the hymn book, in the middle of our Bible, we probably wouldn’t have a school of church music and worship. In fact, I wonder if churches would even have a time of singing or response to God’s revelation during the weekly gathering in first Baptist It wasn’t until Benjamin Keach came along and convinced them that they needed to be singing, until Calvin sang during the weekly gathering with in spearheaded the Geneva Psalter. His his services were silent of song.
But the Christian faith is a singing faith that’s truly and wonderfully rooted in the antecedents of Hebrew singers and songwriters like David and Asaph and Ethan and Moses and Miriam and the sons of Korah. And through the Psalms, we learn the language of our faith. Thomas long says that corporate worship is God’s language school, and that’s why the psalms are the foundational mentor and guide in developing the vocabulary and the grammar of our worship, both privately and corporately, and as we’ve seen throughout the semester, the Psalms have provided for us the Holy Spirit breathed vocabulary for our expressions of praise and prayer, of joy and sorrow, Thanksgiving and petition, confession and forgiveness, for those moments of life’s mountaintop and experiences to the lows and the anguish of despair. The Psalms provide for us models for us to remember the mighty acts and deeds of God throughout history and throughout our own lives, and they describe with incredible accuracy, the Prophet, Priest and King that all of Scripture ultimately points to. We know through our study of the psalms that the Psalter is divided into five books, or five sections, and the last Psalm in each of those books is contains a doxology.
But all six verses, all of Psalm 150 all of it point to the praise of Yahweh. Psalm 150 as the concluding psalm of the Psalter is known as the Grand doxology, and in the last Psalm in the Bible’s hymnal, Psalm 150 the psalmist answers four key questions. I think about praising God. If you have your copy of the Word of God, just look at Psalm 150 with me in your Bibles. Where do we praise Him? We praise him in his sanctuary and in his mighty expanse. Our Triune God is worthy of our praise everywhere we go And everywhere we breathe. Why do we praise Him? The Psalmist tells us for His powerful acts and for his abundant greatness. With what do we praise Him? All kinds of instruments, harp and lyre, trumpet and trombone, excuse me, tambourine, flute and symbols and with our. Bodies in physical gesture and with our voices. And who should praise him? Every thing that breathes should praise the Lord. A New Testament, cousin to Psalm 150 is Colossians 3:16-17, Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. For a moment, we’d like to follow the admonition to praise God with everything in us, with all our breath and for his sovereign control of everything surrounding us, because that’s the spectrum of praise that’s captured in Psalm 150 everything within us, everything around us, is worthy of His praise. And to do that, I’d like you to turn to Psalm 13, our responses of praise to the Lord for his deliverance and his faithful love, they’re not nebulous and abstract, and while we don’t know the exact circumstance For this plea from the psalmist in Psalm 13, for deliverance.
I believe this. It is written through the Spirit in a way that works for God’s people throughout the ages, for the specific circumstances in their lives, for the specific circumstance in your life and in my life. So as you read and meditate on this psalm for the next few minutes, Joshua and Claire are going to sing a musical version of Psalm 13. And as they do this, I’m going to ask that though, that the Holy Spirit would prompt us to personalize our response to God’s faithful love in our lives, even in the most difficult circumstances, and to direct our praise to Him As Psalm 150 says for his Powerful acts and his abundant greatness.
For all of my days, I will sing praise for you have been good to me. May that be the anthem of our lives as we consider the one to whom our praise is directed. Let’s read out loud together Psalm 23 Shall we together? I believe it will be on the screens. The Lord is my shepherd. I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life. He leads me along the right paths, for his name’s sake, even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger. For you are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord as long as I live.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all our days. Psalm 145 is also a powerful and a beautiful expression of praise, and like so many other of the Psalms, David explores both the transcendent otherness of God and His intimate nearness. David exalts the Lord and reminds us that God’s greatness is unsearchable, and that one generation will declare His works to the next. Aren’t you grateful we’re a part of that line. And David also writes that the Lord is gracious and compassionate, and he helps those who fall and raises up the oppressed. So this morning, don’t miss the opportunity to praise God specifically as he’s worked in your life, as we stand and sing together Psalm 145.
May we exalt his name forever and ever, amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. You may be seated as we mentioned throughout the Psalms, we learn the language we learn the grammar of praise. The Psalms also provide us for expressions of worship for those times in life when we struggle to praise God simply because he seems so distant. Psalm 130 like Psalm 13 gives us the vocabulary of waiting on God, and before we sing Psalm 130 I’ve asked Pastor Todd, as Dr Dockery said, to lead us in a time of guided prayer that I’m praying that will help us to connect the dots between Psalm 130 a time of waiting in the grand doxology of Psalm, 150 a time of praise. Pastor, Todd, thank you.
