00:00:00:19 – 00:00:21:48
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. And, yeah, we appreciate you sticking with us as we have just kind of started, moving into the Psalms. And this will be unlike most of our studies. We bouncing around quite a bit. We won’t be working our way through every word in Psalms. Though we encourage you to do that on your own.

00:00:21:48 – 00:01:04:10
Clint Loveall
But we are trying to work through, some of the categories mentioned yesterday in the intro that the Psalms are kind of categorized by the type. It’s not always clean categorization. Some start is one thing and transition to another, because that’s, the way that human experience works today we’re looking at probably I would argue, Michael, maybe the best known, potentially the most common in the book of Psalms, which is praise or adoration, those Psalms that elicit from the writer or from those who are speaking just a sort of worship posture, those psalms of praise, psalms of prayer.

00:01:04:15 – 00:01:25:08
Clint Loveall
These, I think, for a lot of people, fit into their favorite psalms. I think many of these are the Psalms that people know, potentially, because I think they’re also often used in worship, either set to music or even in liturgy or readings. They just that I think they’ve mattered to people.

00:01:25:13 – 00:01:50:07
Michael Gewecke
I think an important starting place as we begin here with the idea of praise Psalms, is that you have to understand that there are some Psalms specifically when you get towards the end of this entire collection of Psalms, where praise is highly emphasized, and then you’re going to have sections in the middle, especially around some of the royal psalms, where you’re going to have praise as a genre, show up a little less often.

00:01:50:07 – 00:02:12:28
Michael Gewecke
It’s never completely absent, but there are locations in the Psalms that as groupings in which you’re going to see praise more consistently and more thoroughly. I think what’s really important to note at the beginning of a conversation about Praise Psalms is with that word that you begin with, and that is that you need to understand. Not every psalm is thoroughgoing.

00:02:12:28 – 00:02:41:29
Michael Gewecke
Lee. Praise that there are times in which the praise follows a lament or a cry of sadness. There’s times where it follows the statement of belief or trust. There are many different ways in which praise gets woven through the core theme that you’re going to see throughout all the Psalms, though, I think you would argue, is that ultimately, praise always flows out of a reflection of God’s presence and action in the world.

00:02:41:29 – 00:03:09:16
Michael Gewecke
In other words, praise does not come up as a kind of, fake it til you make it. It doesn’t flow out of a heart or a gesture of requirement. It is flowing out of an encounter, or a statement of belief and trust in a God who will be faithful. And the God who will carry you through. There’s a very responsive element to praise in the Psalms because God has shown up.

00:03:09:16 – 00:03:41:22
Michael Gewecke
God has done a thing that God can be trusted. And so out of that relationship it flows. And that may seem, I don’t know, that might seem like a technicality to you, but I think it’s really important that you recognize that as the Psalms, which, by the way, Psalm means praise. So this idea that we’re being taught, no matter what season of life that we’re in, to encounter a living God, and then that encounter will ultimately elicit praise from us because we will discover once again, no matter the circumstance, God is faithful.

00:03:41:22 – 00:03:43:00
Michael Gewecke
God is with us. God is good.

00:03:43:04 – 00:04:03:07
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And while I do think that most of the Psalms at least carry some aspect of praise or some moment where they turn to adoration and consideration of the goodness of God, there are some that are kind of live there. That’s their home base. So we’re going to just look at a few and probably they are well known.

00:04:03:12 – 00:04:27:49
Clint Loveall
The first certainly is, the 23rd Psalm, I think easily the best known psalm, probably the best known passage in the Old Testament, a psalm we are told of David, another characteristic of the psalm. Some of them are given authorship. David gets credit for the most number of psalms. There are a few others who are mentioned as well.

00:04:27:53 – 00:04:56:39
Clint Loveall
This one is attributed to David. It’s. It’s well known as the psalmist praises God and expresses confidence for what God has done. If we start backwards, God is prepared the table and anointed my head, and goodness and mercy will follow me. And then the psalmist has then professed confidence. Interestingly enough, this is there’s also a little bit of a translation thing here.

00:04:56:43 – 00:05:29:55
Clint Loveall
The the very well known verse, even though I should walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Notice on your translation, Michael, we now understand that probably the best translation of that Hebrew is, a dark valley, or in this case, the darkest valley. King James, the the King James translation, not the person, but the King James translation of the Bible gave us this poetic expression, the valley of the shadow of death.

00:05:30:00 – 00:06:02:43
Clint Loveall
When I get a new worship Bible that I think I will ever read at a funeral, the first thing I do is open to Psalm 23, cross off Darkest Valley and write shadow of the Valley of Death, because that’s what people know. And in that moment, certainly that’s what people expect. And I would argue, even maybe need. And so it’s, there aren’t very many places where we’ve said, oh, we, we think we have a better translation, but maybe we should leave it alone.

00:06:02:43 – 00:06:22:30
Clint Loveall
And for me, this is this is one of those once that the King James Version came up with the shadow of the valley of death, the valley of the shadow of death. That that stuck. And I don’t think that anybody cares. That Darkest Valley might be a better translation.

00:06:22:33 – 00:06:24:39
Michael Gewecke
Except the scholars. They want us to know that.

00:06:24:39 – 00:06:32:43
Clint Loveall
Yeah, old Testament people, they they care. But, people who hear this and wonder why you don’t know it. They don’t.

00:06:32:45 – 00:06:56:30
Michael Gewecke
So I think I want to note here is, I wonder if you would have put Psalm 23 as a praise psalm before this study. You know, there is an interesting way in which we can kind of make assumptions about what a praise would be or should be. And note here that there’s a lot of confidence in this Psalm.

00:06:56:34 – 00:07:25:31
Michael Gewecke
Right? You have the statement of who God is, God’s the shepherd, the function of that shepherd, the leading me restoring you have even going with me, in the darkest part of the human experience and the comforting, the preparing. All of this, of course, is a statement of faith, reflection, of trust. But do you see how the confidence leads to a kind of thanksgiving?

00:07:25:46 – 00:07:53:04
Michael Gewecke
That the psalm lives underneath this larger banner of the fact that God is faithful, that God is present. God can be trusted. And so therefore, it’s a psalm reflecting thanksgiving and praise. It’s a Psalm that returns gratitude throughout the narrative of the text. And I think sometimes we hem things in in the Bible. Well, you say, well, it doesn’t say praise in the Psalm.

00:07:53:04 – 00:08:37:01
Michael Gewecke
So how does it fit that category? Well, it’s because ultimately, when the psalmist is reflecting upon this overarching faithfulness and trustworthiness of God, there is a confident assurance, a praising of God for that table that will be set, the ability to see the hand that reaches beyond our line of sight, our vision into eternal and perfect vision. And that is very reflective of a psalm of praise, because for a moment the words are reflecting something that God is doing in a way that not even the human spirit by itself could do.

00:08:37:06 – 00:09:05:42
Clint Loveall
I think, I think. Maybe one way to to get at that, Michael, is to say that when we proclaim that God can be trusted, we are simultaneously proclaiming that God is trustworthy. So when the psalmist here says these things about God, it is a praise of God’s worthiness to be to be given these words and, what we maybe need to move on.

00:09:05:42 – 00:09:32:33
Clint Loveall
But one last interesting thing about Psalm 23 if you read the Psalm carefully, you see that in the beginning of the Psalm God is addressed in third person. The Lord God he. And that’s the part of the psalm where things are going. Well. And then in the latter part of the the latter part, I’m walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the presence of my enemies.

00:09:32:33 – 00:10:10:50
Clint Loveall
Then it goes to first person you are with me, and you prepare a table, and, there’s something I don’t know if. I mean, I’d like to give the the author credit and say that that’s on purpose. But there’s something beautiful about that. That in good times we do think of maybe God is out there, but less intimate and those moments that are challenging to us, that’s when we call on God by name and that the closeness then becomes far more important.

00:10:10:55 – 00:10:39:25
Clint Loveall
Just a section of praise hymns that might be helpful for you to look at if you turn to the middle of the 40s, say, Psalm 45 4646 is a well known psalm. God is our refuge and strength, help in times of trouble. 4748 there are several praise psalms kind of lumped together, and we won’t go through them all, but I think that’s a a good place.

00:10:39:25 – 00:11:04:52
Clint Loveall
Clap your hands, all you people. The Lord the Most High is awesome. He’s a great king over all the earth. God has gone with a shout. God sits on his holy throne. The these Psalms, I think, captured the essence of what we would think of as praise. The celebrate. They attribute glory and honor and power.

00:11:04:57 – 00:11:17:01
Clint Loveall
Lots of beautiful phrases in these psalms. If not from start to finish, there is something in just about each one of them that will, I think, be, pretty noticeable.

00:11:17:06 – 00:11:37:44
Michael Gewecke
I think that maybe Psalm 48 is, helpful entry point in that, because notice how when we think of praise, we might be tempted to think of that in a very personal sense. I think that’s one of the reasons why Psalm 23 resonates so much. But much of the Psalms, the praise is cosmic. It’s national, certainly for the people.

00:11:37:57 – 00:12:03:40
Michael Gewecke
It often involves the temple, which is a gathering place where God’s presence is regular and faithful and can be found. It is about how God is working, even in nature itself. The majesty of the creator. God is a source of praise. And just this idea that you know, the Holy mountain, beautiful in its elevation, is a joy of all the earth.

00:12:03:45 – 00:12:35:48
Michael Gewecke
These are things that you might not think of as a source of praise. But Clint, I really think that this challenges Christians to understand that there is nothing in God’s creation. And by that I mean relationship. And by that I mean the natural stuff that surrounds us. There’s really nothing where the praise of God cannot be found. The truth is that the psalmist is able to see something of God in these really amazing places, some of them great and some of them very small.

00:12:35:52 – 00:13:01:04
Michael Gewecke
And the invitation to us as people of prayer to people who I find the Psalms speaking for us, I think is an invitation to learn that praise is not to be subjugated to moments of life where things are going really well. Right? You don’t just say thank you when you get great birthday presents and you celebrate your next anniversary, but there’s also praise in those moments of brokenness.

00:13:01:04 – 00:13:35:36
Michael Gewecke
There’s also praise in the moment where all you have is the beauty that surrounds you, even if you don’t feel it inside you. That real truth of the Psalms is that God and God’s faithfulness to us extends beyond the horizon of what we can see. So therefore, every moment, no matter the tumult, no matter the trouble, no matter the pain, no matter quite frankly, our doubts or anger that might even be related to God out of those places can spring forth praise that these things don’t live in contradistinction to one another.

00:13:35:36 – 00:14:01:22
Michael Gewecke
They don’t fight against one another to the destruction of the other. They may be in tension. We may find them uncomfortable in our lives of faith. But friends, God is able to take the burned out forest and to make the green grow up from within it. That that is the state of the Psalms, I think is it’s cosmic, it’s natural, it’s relational, it’s in the good and it’s in the bad.

00:14:01:22 – 00:14:06:52
Michael Gewecke
And praise just finds its way through the cracks wherever we find ourselves in the midst of it.

00:14:07:06 – 00:14:29:52
Clint Loveall
And I do think it’s important that we realize, within that broader scope of praise, something you mentioned, Michael, that there are times when praise is an individual. It’s a moment, it comes personal. And then there are times where we gather together and you find psalms that express both of those. I praise you, O Lord, etc., etc. and we praise you.

00:14:29:52 – 00:15:08:20
Clint Loveall
And I think that is, we need both when we we need to feel that personally, that adoration and exaltation of God. And then we need to do that with other people of faith, other believers. Psalm 100 is wonderful. Praise Psalm, a psalm of thanksgiving, which we can talk about. It’s certainly getting to be that season, but maybe the epitome if you flip to the last Psalm in the the book here, Psalm 150, it just the repeated theme praise the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary.

00:15:08:20 – 00:15:41:58
Clint Loveall
Praise him for his mighty deeds. Praise him with the trumpet. Praise him with tambourine. Praise, praise, praise. Let everything that breathes. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. I don’t know. I don’t think at this point we have a good sense of who organized the Psalms. I think we largely inherited that, and we’ve lost the information. But this is no accident that we end this book with a psalm that begins every verse with praise, praise, praise and ends with a repeated statement praise the Lord.

00:15:41:58 – 00:16:13:04
Clint Loveall
Everything that breathes. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. So, I think, fittingly and tellingly, this book finishes itself on that note of praise when whoever it was said, how should we end this salt? Or how should we end this collection? They couldn’t help but think, well, we should end it with praise, not with lament, not with, you know, confession, not with hey, curse our enemies.

00:16:13:19 – 00:16:20:54
Clint Loveall
But but praise was the fitting place to leave off. And I think that’s not an accident by by any stretch.

00:16:20:56 – 00:16:47:28
Michael Gewecke
Two quick things. One directly connected to that. The Psalms are filled with darkness and the reality of confession that human life is hard, but it is inherently hopeful that the Psalms, because they have something to say to and about God. They always have a through line, a red crimson thread of hopefulness and joy and thanksgiving embedded within them.

00:16:47:33 – 00:17:06:57
Michael Gewecke
And I think you’re exactly right, Clint, that we see that come out at the end. And this is a pastoral interpretation, not a scholarly one. I want to be very clear, but verse six, the very last words, let everything that breathes praise the Lord, praise the Lord. We live in a moment, Clint, where Christians sometimes talk as if it’s Christianity versus everyone.

00:17:07:12 – 00:17:34:33
Michael Gewecke
It’s a very heavy time in a lot of people’s hearts. I think the Psalms deals with the heaviness in such candid ways that when it comes to the end, I see these words as almost not a command. Like every sing should praise the Lord, but we know that they’re not going to, and rather an observation that literally you can’t have breath and not praise the Lord.

00:17:34:33 – 00:17:55:39
Michael Gewecke
The fact that you have breath at all is a reflection of God’s grandeur and glory in you, a kind of cosmic hopefulness that regardless of how you find yourself today, whether you count yourself as a person of faith, whether you followed the whole journey of the Psalms, and you could join your voice with the psalmist in both faith and also doubt.

00:17:55:39 – 00:18:20:58
Michael Gewecke
And, you know, no matter how you land, that that God has imbued creation with a kind of gift that we cannot help but by existing be giving praise to God. I think there’s a kind of hopefulness in the Psalms that sometimes the gift lives in us, whether or not we know it. It’s not just a matter of appreciating it, but God has given it to us.

00:18:21:10 – 00:18:34:16
Michael Gewecke
And I think that there’s a kind of invitation for us, maybe to accept some grace. If this isn’t the day that we feel a lot of Thanksgiving. Well, you’re existing is a way of giving thanks to God.

00:18:34:21 – 00:19:15:04
Clint Loveall
I think not only is it hopeful, Michael, it may go so far as to be instructional, and I think the beauty of the Psalms is that having a sensitivity to all the range of human experience, the best of our days and the worst of our days, that the Psalms evidences for us, that the last word should be praise, that when we approach God, even from the midst of broken heartedness, when when we, when we pause from whatever our circumstance to appreciate and admire and encounter God, inevitably our final word should be praise the Lord.

00:19:15:09 – 00:19:38:43
Clint Loveall
That that’s where. That’s where it will take us. That’s where relationally interacting with the great God of heaven and earth will deliver us to praise. And so I think that’s a wonderful challenge for those of us who are faced people. Wherever our prayer starts, may we be willing to follow it so that the last word is praise.

00:19:38:43 – 00:19:48:39
Clint Loveall
That’s not easy to do. I do not mean that in any way shallow, but I think the Psalms gives us a wonderful example of what it means that praise is the last word.

00:19:48:39 – 00:20:11:34
Michael Gewecke
Literally think that the Psalms function in many ways. I think they give us permission in some cases. And I think you’re exactly right. They also instruct us, they teach us of how to approach God and how to see God renewing and transforming our lives. That’s our hope for you. Thanks for being with us here today. As we go through these Psalms together, we know that we’re flying over them in that 30,000ft view.

00:20:11:43 – 00:20:26:00
Michael Gewecke
And yet we hope that we learn something about what these words have to teach us about ourselves, and also to teach us about the God who is worthy of our praise. Subscribe. So you don’t miss studies like this. Give it a thumbs up so it helps others find it in their studies. We’ll see you all tomorrow.

00:20:26:02 – 00:20:26:43
Clint Loveall
Thanks everybody.