Psalm 150 - Praise
- Mar 30
- 8 min read
Y'all, we have been in the Book of Psalms for many weeks together. We started in Psalm 1 - one guy, sitting quietly, meditating on the law. And from there, we traveled through some territory. We sat in the lament psalms, the 'How long, O Lord?' ones. We rested in Psalm 23 with the Good Shepherd. We confessed alongside David. Last week, we sat with Psalm 139 and the God who knows us - better than we know ourselves, by the way.
And now we arrive here. Six verses. Thirteen Hallelujahs. That is not a typo.
Here is what I want you to think about. If the Book of Psalms is a grand cathedral, then
Psalm 150 is the final, thunderous chord on the great pipe organ - the one that makes the very floorboards shake. This is not how you end a long journey with a quiet whisper.
This is a roar. The Psalter does not close with a question mark. It closes with an exclamation point. Actually, it closes with thirteen of them.
And the word 'Hallelujah' appearing thirteen times in six verses? That is not an accident. That is a theological statement.
The Psalms start with one man sitting quietly. They end with everything that has breath shouting together. That is the journey - from private devotion to full-on, no-holds-barred praise.
Psalm 150 answers four questions. Where do we praise? Why do we praise? How do we praise? And who does the praising? We are going to walk through each one together.
1. The Geography and Grounds of Praise - Where and Why We Praise (vv. 1-2)
Psalm 150:1-2
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Right out of the gate, the psalmist gives us two locations and two reasons. Let's take them one at a time.
Two locations. The sanctuary - where God meets His people. Where the church gathers. This room, right here, 7 Creeks on a Sunday morning. And then the mighty heavens - that is His cosmic throne room. That is the full expanse of the universe from one end to the other.
What is the point of those two locations? God is both immanent and transcendent. Now I know that sounds like seminary vocabulary, but it just means this - He is near to you, AND He is above everything. He is your personal Friend AND the Sovereign King of the universe. Both. At the same time.
You can praise Him in church. You can praise Him in your car driving home. You can praise Him at 6 in the morning on your back porch with a cup of coffee. You can praise Him under the stars on a Saturday night. You can praise Him alone at your kitchen table. The location does not limit the praise. It just reminds us that praise belongs everywhere.
Now the two reasons. Verse 2 says we praise Him for His 'mighty deeds' - that is what He does. His acts. His redemption. His protection. His provision. Over these past twelve weeks, we have seen those mighty deeds all through the Psalms. Psalm 91, Psalm 23, Psalm 136 - God showing up for His people time and time again.
But the second reason is just as important - and I think this one hits differently. We praise Him 'according to his excellent greatness.' That is who He is. His very nature. His character.
Here is the deal. There are going to be weeks where you do not see a mighty deed. You prayed for something. You expected it. And it did not come - at least not yet. What do you do in that week? This verse tells you. You praise Him for who He IS. His excellent greatness never changes. His greatness is not contingent on your circumstances. It just is.
Application:
Think back over these twelve weeks. Was there a 'sanctuary moment' where you felt God's presence in a real way? Hold onto that. And then zoom way out and look at the bigness of who He is - the God who holds the whole universe together. Praise Him today for being both. Your personal Friend and the King of everything.
2. The Symphony of the Redeemed - How We Praise (vv. 3-5)
Psalm 150:3-5
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
I love this section. The psalmist just starts listing instruments and he does not stop until he has covered every single category of ancient instrument.
Wind: the shofar - the ram's horn. When that thing blew, something was happening. Kings were crowned. Battles were launched. It is the sound of royalty and of warfare. Royalty and warfare. And then the flute and the pipe.
Strings: the lute and the harp. Gentle, melodic, emotional. These are the instruments that carry feeling.
Percussion: the tambourine - you cannot play a tambourine without moving. And then the cymbals. Both kinds - sounding and loud clashing. That second one? Jarring. Impossible to ignore. If you are sitting in the back row this morning, you are still hearing the clashing cymbals.
And then right in the middle of all those instruments, the psalmist drops in something that is not an instrument at all: dance. Your body.
Why does he list all of these? Because worship is not one-size-fits-all.
Think about an orchestra. You need the strings AND the brass AND the percussion. You need the soft parts AND the loud parts. You need the melody AND the rhythm. Pull one section out and the whole thing sounds incomplete.
The body of Christ is the same way. Some of you praise God quietly - early morning, journal open, coffee in hand. Some of you are hands-in-the-air worshipers and you don't really care who's watching. Some of you express praise through how you serve, through how you give, through just showing up faithful and steady week after week after week. All of it counts. Every instrument is invited to play.
God composed this symphony. He put a specific sound in you. Bring it.
Application:
Which instrument represents where you are right now? Are you in a 'clashing cymbals' season - loud, chaotic, big transitions happening? Or are you in a 'gentle harp' season - quiet, reflective, still? Whatever your season sounds like, bring that sound to God this week. He composed the symphony. He can receive every note of it.
3. The Universal Requirement - Who Praises (v. 6)
Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Six words. In the Hebrew, even fewer. But they are some of the most expansive words in all of Scripture.
Everything. That. Has. Breath.
The Hebrew word for 'breath' here is neshamah. And if that sounds familiar, it should - because that same word shows up in the very beginning of your Bible.
Genesis 2:7
...then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Same word. The same breath God breathed into Adam at creation is now the qualification for praise. If you have oxygen in your lungs right now, you are qualified. No other prerequisites. Age does not matter. Status does not matter. Expertise does not matter. If you are breathing, you are called to praise.
Here is what that means structurally in the Psalms. Psalm 1 opens with one person - a single blessed man meditating in silence. Psalm 150 closes with everything that has breath erupting in full-orchestra praise. The doors fly open. That is the journey of the people of God - from one individual to all of creation.
Now I want to park on something for a minute, because I think it gets missed in a lot of praise conversations. Praise is not just spiritual. It matters emotionally. It matters physically. When you choose to open your mouth and declare who God is - when you choose that - something happens on the inside. Faith increases. The atmosphere shifts. His presence enters.
Praise is expressing your faith before the answer is seen. That is not denial. That is declaration.
And think about this - only God's children can praise Him with that kind of weight. Anybody can sing a song. But when you know the God you are singing to, when He has breathed His Spirit into your life, that is a different kind of praise. It comes from somewhere deeper.
Psalm 30:11-12
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
That is the testimony of someone who chose praise in the middle of the hard stuff and came out the other side. Mourning turned to dancing. Sackcloth traded for gladness.
And it did not happen in silence. It happened in praise.
And then there is this one from Habakkuk. He is writing in one of the most devastating circumstances you can imagine - total agricultural and economic collapse. Not one thing is going right. And he still says:
Habakkuk 3:17-18
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
'Yet I will rejoice.' That is a choice. Not a feeling - a choice. Praise is a choice. You can choose praise over grumbling. You can choose praise over complaining. And when you choose it, you step into God's presence. And in His presence, your enemies and your problems do not get the last word.
Application:
Try this practice this week. Call them 'breath prayers.' As you inhale, acknowledge God as the source of your life. As you exhale, offer a simple 'Praise the Lord.' Let the rhythm of your own breathing remind you of your purpose.
GOSPEL CONNECTION
We cannot talk about breath and praise without talking about what Jesus did with His.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus agonized. He sweat drops of blood. He prayed for another way. And then He went to the cross. He was mocked. He was beaten. And on that cross, His breath - His neshamah - was taken from Him. He experienced the silence of death so that our loud, clashing cymbals of joy could ring out forever.
The 'mighty deeds' of verse 2 - the whole reason we praise - they find their ultimate fulfillment not just in creation or in the exodus or in any of the other great acts the Psalms celebrate. They find their fullest expression in the Resurrection.
John 20:22
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
The risen Jesus breathed again. And He breathed His Spirit into His disciples. Because of the Gospel, we do not just breathe air. We breathe the Spirit of God. Our praise is no longer just a duty or a religious obligation. It is the natural overflow of a heart that was dead and has been made alive.
Everything begins and ends with God. And the Book of Psalms - all 150 of them - makes that exact argument. From the lone man meditating in Psalm 1 to the full-orchestra eruption right here in Psalm 150, the entire journey is pulling us toward one thing: giving God the glory He deserves.
And here is where this is all headed. In Revelation 19, the heavenly multitude - a crowd you cannot count - cries out 'Hallelujah' four times. Psalm 150 is not just how we close out a sermon series. It is a preview. A glimpse of the eternal worship that is coming. We are practicing right now for something that will not have an end.
The God who knows the worst about you has, through the Cross, given you His best. That is worth a Hallelujah.