Psalms 145:1-21 - Homiletics

Our response to God.

What feeling should the greatness and the goodness of God call forth from us, and how should we utter it? We will praise God in every way that is open to us.

I. CONTINUALLY . ( Psalms 145:2 .) "Every day" will we bless him: his praise shall be "continually" in our mouth ( Psalms 34:1 ). Not that a man is necessarily more devout because the Name of God is always on his lips, but that the spirit of thankfulness should be always in the heart, and should spontaneously and freely rise for utterance.

II. CONTINUOUSLY . ( Psalms 145:1 , Psalms 145:2 .) "Forever and ever." Through all the days and the years of life—and beyond. Many things eagerly undertaken will be allowed to drop out, but this, never. The tongue may well forget its office before it ceases to praise God. There is. no end to which language can be put which is worthy to be compared with that of rendering praise to the Giver of all good, the God of our salvation. We will bless God-

"While life and thought and being last,

Or immortality endures,"

III. HEARTILY . This may well be included in the "abundant" utterance of Psalms 145:7 . For thanksgiving is fundamentally lacking if it does not come from the heart as well as from the lips. Praise should be abundant even to overflow, because the cup of the heart is full of intense gratitude, of filial love and joy.

IV. INTELLIGENTLY . Those who only recognize the more superficial blessings may be content with thanking God for his "benefits," for his bestowments, for those things that gladden the heart and enrich the life; but they who look deeper and judge more wisely will "sing of his righteousness" as well as of his kindness ( Psalms 145:7 ; see also Psalms 101:1 ). For we have the deepest interest in God's righteousness, and should extol him for that quite as earnestly as we do for the multitude of his mercies.

V. INSTRUMENTALLY . ( Psalms 145:4 .) It should be our hope, our prayer, and our endeavor that our own praise of God be extended , through us, to our neighbors, and be carried down , through us, to our children and our children's children. It may depend on us, on our devotion and on the conduct of our lives, whether the praises of Christ shall be sung by lips that have so far been silent, by those who are now scarcely able to speak his Name, and by those who are still unborn. How much may a wise and earnest spirit do to enlarge and to perpetuate the praises of his Redeemer!

VI. INDIRECTLY . If all God's works praise him ( Psalms 145:10 ), even those which are unintelligent and insensible, surely we may say that the pure and beautiful lives of the good, the kind, the generous, are ever unconsciously, but most effectively, praising God.