Finding Yourself in the Psalms
Psalm 149
A Psalm to Celebrate God’s Interest in Me
Two parts to Psalm 149
– Celebrating the God who Loves me. 1-5
– Serving the God who Loves me. 6-9
I. Celebrating the God who Loves me. 149:1-5
A. Worship belongs to the redeemed. A “new song”
1. (Psalm 40:3) "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our
God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord."
2. (Revelation 5:9) "And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."
3. (Revelation 14:3) "And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song
except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth."
B. Worship Should Flow from our Hearts. 149:3
1. dancing. Praising God with unashamed ACTIVITY
a. “so I guess we should dance?” b. THIS dancing was for worship c. TWO QUESTIONS:
(1) can we dance for social entertainment?
(a) For those in a HURRY to apply a literal hermeneutic to Ps 149:3, look at Psalm 149:7!!
(b) NO. to many young people, dancing is the prelude to sex.
(c) NO. night clubs, discos are places not fit for a
Christian
(d) NO. we don’t want to be identified with that.
(e) Friends who line dance, ball room dance, square dance: I don’t condemn them. I can’t participate with a clear conscience.
(2) can we dance in worship? (a) Dancing angels? (b) Choreography
(c) Where do you draw the line?
(d) Don’t get up in church and dance
(e) What about raising hands? the raising of hands is found in both OT and NT. We don’t do it because of the abuse of our Charismatic brothers, but
there’s nothing wrong with it. Please recognize the
conservative tradition at FBC.
2. music Worship God with Joyful MUSIC. “make music to him with tambourine and harp.
C. As we delight in God, He delights in us. 149:4
1. Word = Rasa. “the root frequently describes God’s pleasure with his
servants, particularly referred to the Messiah” (TWOT, p. 859) (Isaiah
42:1) “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations."
2. (Psalm 35:27) "May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.”"
3. (Psalm 17:8) "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings"
4. Does he inhabit our PRAISE, or does he inhabit US!
a. (Psalm 22:3) "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
b. (Psalm 22:3) "Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel."
5. The Lord delights in our worship. (Hebrews 13:15) "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name."
II. Serving the God Who Loves me.
A. God used ISRAEL to punish His enemies. B. God uses US to proclaim his Message
1. Is God more lenient than he was before the cross?
a. NO. The judgment is CHRISt who bears our sin.
b. The GREATER the GRACE, the greater the CONSEQUENCES
for rejecting that GRACE
2. (1 Peter 2:9-10) "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
C. We are his WORKMANSHIP
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