Is Now A Good Time to Praise God?

Posted on by Japanese Congregational Church

Psalm 146

Our passage for today, Psalm 146, is one of the “praise songs” that completes the book of Psalms (Psalm 146-150). Its structure can be summarized as follows:

  • Opening Doxology (v.1-2)
    • Praise the Lord! I’ll praise God as long as I live. I’ll praise God with my whole self  
    • I’ll praise God with and through my life 
  • Stanza 1: The fallibility and weakness of mortals (v.3-4)
    • Don’t put your trust in human leaders. There is NO political leader or political party that aligns with the Kingdom of God.
    • All leaders (on both sides!) are weak, fallible, and soon to be gone. When they die, their ideas and plans die with them.
  • Stanza 2: The power and enduring glory of God (v.5-9)
    • Happy are those who trust in God!
    • God is the creator of heaven and earth…and everything!
    • He remains faithful forever
    • He looks out for the oppressed
    • He feeds the hungry
    • He sets prisoners free
    • He gives sight to the blind
    • God loves the righteous….and lifts up those who are bowed down
    • God protects the orphan, widow, and alien (stranger, refugee, immigrant
    • God frustrates the plans of the wicked
  • Closing Doxology (v.10)
    • Praise this Great God…who reigns forever! Hallelujah!

An even shorter summary could be the following:

  1. Praise God!
  2. Don’t put your trust in human leaders!
  3. Trust in God!
  4. Hallelujah!

We are a nation divided. (Japan is too. The ruling party just lost their coalition in last week’s elections.) Anger and loud voices take the place of civil debate, argument, and disagreement. We point fingers at each other. We forget that we are all citizens of the same country. We can’t see that we are being manipulated to act this way. We listen to our own news channels and decide our own facts. Truth is too time-consuming, too costly, and too complex. Fiction and lies are fast, free, and easy. When we read Psalm 146 on the brink of our election this week….. Does this really seem like a good time to be focusing on praising God?? Perhaps a lament would be more appropriate?

Yes! This is an excellent time to be praising God for the following reasons:

  • Praise is NOT mood music. We don’t praise God just because we feel happy or joyful (although that certainly may be the case). When we praise God, we state WHO GOD is, and WHO WE are. That’s why praise is important even when we’re in trouble!
  • Voting may be our responsibility and civic duty. But Praise is a confession of our faith.
  • Crying and grieving may be cathartic and empathetic.  But praising (especially in the middle of strife as we see it now) is, in one sense, an act of defiance.
  • Praise produces power, by producing a change in us.
  • This is NOT a Polly-annish, rose-colored-glasses, glass-half-filled kind of optimism. We don’t praise because we believe that “everything will be suddenly better tomorrow”. We praise because we trust God, and trust that God alone….can bring about the wonderful results listed in verses 5-9 above.

A wonderful example of praise acting as a form of defiance and producing power….is found in Acts 16. Paul and Silas, after being beaten within an inch of their lives, are then thrown into prison and put in stocks. In that dark cold prison…at midnight….their songs of praise can suddenly be heard. It says that the other prisoners were listening to them. Can you imagine how surprising it must have been in that prison to overhear two prisoners quietly singing praises to God?! Why are they singing praises? Don’t they know that this would be the perfect time to complain and find fault with everyone?

Instead, they confess their trust in God…and take strength through singing praises. The result of their praise is not completely known by us….but for starters it was followed by an earthquake that shook all the doors open, causing the jailor to almost take his own life because he was afraid the prisoners had all escaped. Later, the jailor and his whole family are baptized! Will our praises always bring about dramatic results like this? Maybe not, but we may be surprised by the power that comes from praise.

Nothing in Psalm 146 discourages us from being involved in the political process, or from actively using our political structures and our votes to seek change. However, the warning is clear. Our ultimate salvation and true hope is NOT to be found in a political party or even political leaders. They ALL (whether good or bad) serve at the pleasure of our Sovereign God.

I challenge you this week to be people of praise!

  • pray for our country.
  • Pray for the safety and accuracy of our election and its results.
  • Pray for our fellow-citizens – that peace, and kindness, and calm will prevail.
  • Let’s praise God together that He is in control – that while human leaders come and go, His love and reign are eternal.

Our hope and our salvation is not, finally, in our political structures, our elections, or in any of the candidates – whether they be excellent or poor.

Our hope is in the Lord God. And regardless of outcomes… or our tomorrows… God has promised to be with us. Hallelujah!

(the above is a summary of the message shared during worship on November 3, 2024.)