A Prayer of Praise

Most days I start the day with a nice big bowl of cereal.  If you know me, you know that cereal is my favorite food, but don’t get me started.  While I eat my cereal I often catch up on the news and read articles or watch a few short clips of what is going on in the world around me.  Pretty scary and sad isn’t it?  We often get depressed by looking around the world and seeing all of the consequences of sin and the pain that has resulted from our rebellion against God.  Today I want to help us take our eyes off of this broken dying world and focus our gaze upon Christ and all that He is and all that he does. 

In the middle of the book of 1 Chronicles as the author is going over the history of Israel including all the genealogies and family lines there is an extended prayer that I want to focus on today.  Literally over 1,000 years is summed up in a few short chapters and so many major events of Israel’s history are left out or summarized in this book.  How could you include everything?  The book would be bigger than the Bible itself and still leave stuff out.  But, what finds its way into the middle of this abbreviated history account?  One specific prayer.  And not just an abbreviation of the prayer, but the whole prayer!  God must want us to know this prayer.  Why?  Well, I hope we can figure that out once we read it.

1 Chronicles 16:8-36

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
    make known his deeds among the peoples! ⁹ Sing to him, sing praises to him;
    tell of all his wondrous works! ¹⁰ Glory in his holy name;
    let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! ¹¹ Seek the Lord and his strength;
    seek his presence continually! ¹² Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
    his miracles and the judgments he uttered, ¹³ O offspring of Israel his servant,
    children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

¹⁴ He is the Lord our God;
    his judgments are in all the earth. ¹⁵ Remember his covenant forever,
    the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, ¹⁶ the covenant that he made with Abraham,
    his sworn promise to Isaac, ¹⁷ which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
    to Israel as an everlasting covenant, ¹⁸ saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan,
    as your portion for an inheritance.”

¹⁹ When you were few in number,
    of little account, and sojourners in it, ²⁰ wandering from nation to nation,
    from one kingdom to another people, ²¹ he allowed no one to oppress them;
    he rebuked kings on their account, ²² saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,
    do my prophets no harm!”

²³ Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
    Tell of his salvation from day to day. ²⁴ Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous works among all the peoples! ²⁵ For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
    and he is to be feared above all gods. ²⁶ For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens. ²⁷ Splendor and majesty are before him;
    strength and joy are in his place.

²⁸ Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! ²⁹ Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    bring an offering and come before him!
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; ³⁰     tremble before him, all the earth;
    yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. ³¹ Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
    and let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” ³² Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
    let the field exult, and everything in it! ³³ Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy
    before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. ³⁴ Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    for his steadfast love endures forever!

³⁵ Say also:

“Save us, O God of our salvation,
    and gather and deliver us from among the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
    and glory in your praise. ³⁶ Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting!”

Then all the people said, “Amen!” and praised the Lord.

Things to think about:

·         Wow!  This passage is meant to be read out loud, screamed out loud!  I think David was pretty passionate when he prayed this prayer.  Why?  Because God is an amazing God.  When we gaze at him instead of at the world around us our whole attitude and outlook will begin to change.

·         I love the way David starts with a “thanks” to the Lord.  That is a great lesson to learn when we come to God in prayer.  More often than not we should be starting our prayers with a thank you of some sort. 

·         We can become consumed by the “news” because there is always something new for the day.  The “news” is always “new” so it continually grabs our attention.  Take some time today to stop looking at what is new and instead look at what is and always has been.  Look at the faithfulness of God.  Look at the great things that He has done.  Look at all of the reasons why God should be praised.  Then praise Him!  Take some time today to spend with God giving him thanks and praise…see if you don’t leave that time rejoicing over God instead of lamenting the status of the world.

·         Read the passage again…may we be like the people in verse 36 who say “Amen!” and then praised the Lord.

Authority

Have you ever been pulled over by a police officer?  When you are sitting there waiting for the inevitable ticket to come a hint of rebellion crosses your mind, doesn’t it?  It has been a long time since I was pulled over, but I can still remember the thoughts going through my head…”who does this guy think he is?  Why punish me?  There are real bad guys to catch, go get one of them…I hope he is merciful…” and much more.  J  Ultimately, we have a problem with authority don’t we?  We don’t like the fact that there are people over us to rule us, govern us, control our actions, tell us what to do, etc.  We have a rebellious heart by nature and struggle against authority most of our lives.  Just watch a two year old fight with their mom – problem with authority!  Do you struggle with the fact that Jesus is God and has all authority for all things and all time?  We may answer, “no of course not,”  but stop and think about it.  Do you submit fully with a good attitude in all things?  I doubt it!  I know I don’t.  Let’s read a story from the gospel of Luke about a man who obviously understood authority better than we do.

Luke 7:1-10

After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. ² Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. ³ When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. ⁴ And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, ⁵ for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” ⁶ And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. ⁷ Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. ⁸ For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” ⁹ When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” ¹⁰ And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.

Things to think about:

·         If you know much about the Roman authority structure you know a centurion was a pretty powerful man.  He commanded authority.  Commanded allegiance.  Commanded fear and intimidation.  But, when the centurion approaches Jesus and this request the Centurion recognizes the authority of Jesus as being supreme.  Think of how wild this is for a moment.  The Romans were forcibly controlling Israel and all of the Jews.  The Jews served the Romans.  Here you not only have a regular Roman, but a Roman centurion who has been given authority to control this region, including all person in that region.  The Centurion could have commanded Jesus to come, commanded him to heal, told him to bow down and serve him…yet, that is not what he did.

·         The Centurion recognized the authority of Jesus.  Do you?  Do I?  When we pray do we command the Lord to answer in the way we want Him to or do we recognize his authority over all things and submit to His will and His way?

·         Notice the humility of the Centurion.  The Jewish elders think the Centurion is “worthy” of this miracle…but the Centurion says he is “unworthy.”  Jesus thought it worth it to go and perform this miracle…whether or not the Centurion was worthy or not…Jesus is worthy of our praise! 

·         Let us have faith like the Centurion and believe in the authority of Jesus!  He is far greater than we think or imagine, far more worthy than any of us, and far more amazing than I can describe here.  Seek Christ with a humble heart and he will be found.