Well, I think the last few times that I have preached here, I've preached from the New Testament to prove that I don't always preach from a psalm, but I'm preaching from a psalm today, so I would ask you to turn with me in the Word of God to Psalm 145, Psalm 145, A psalm that I'm calling Ultimate Praise, and I'll try to explain as we go along why we might speak of it in those terms. Psalm 145. Let us hear God's own word. A song of praise of David. I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works I will meditate. They will speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness, and sing aloud of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of men your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your domain endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand. You satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works. The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him. He also hears their cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. So far, the reading of God's Word. This remarkable Psalm 145 is a psalm about the universal kingship of God. It wants to talk about how God at all times and in all places rules over all. And indeed that word all is found 19 times in this little psalm. Almost every verse, take it as a whole, has a reference to the universality, the extent, the completeness of God's kingdom. And yet when we read that psalm, perhaps we're tempted to pause and to say, then why is the world such a mess? If God is king, if God is in charge, if his kingdom rules over all, if his kingdom is so universal, why in so many ways do we see so little of it? at work I don't know about you every now and again I see something on the news and I think to myself now if I were king of the world that wouldn't happen maybe it's just historians who think of themselves as kings from time to time but I suspect we all sometimes hear and think about things and say how can that be happening how can that be allowed and certainly when we step back and and look at history somewhat more broadly, we realize how, through all of history, kingdoms rise and fall. Kings come and go. In this last week, there was an anniversary that was, as far as I could see, totally ignored in this country. Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the slaughter of the Romanovs. Did you pause to think about that? Do you even know who the Romanovs were? The Romanovs were the ruling family in Russia. For hundreds of years, the Russian Tsar had a larger empire than had ever been known in the history of mankind. And the Romanovs ruled for centuries with absolute power. And now they're so gone, they're almost entirely forgotten. A hundred years ago, slaughtered by the communists. Dr. Nicholas II had abdicated. He was living under house arrest in the middle of nowhere, apparently no danger. And they came in one night and shot him and his wife and his five children without trial, without further ado. Kingdoms rise, and kingdoms fall, and the great are forgotten. This world is a mess, and the psalmist wants us to look beyond the mess. The psalmist wants us to look beyond what is transient, what comes and goes, and to see what is eternal, what is everlasting, what continues. The psalmist wants us to celebrate and praise the God who remains in control and knows what he's doing even if we can't fully understand it or appreciate it. And that's what this psalm then really is. It's an invitation to recognize and to celebrate the kingship of our God. To be reassured in our hearts that he's in charge. He knows what he's doing, and he will bring his purposes to a successful outcome. And when we get discouraged, when we begin to wonder, when we have frustrations either in our own lives or in the world as we look at it around us, a psalm like this calls us back to the center of things, to the heart of things. It calls us back to praise our God who is in charge. It calls us to meditate on that reality. That's one of the things that we're called to here in this psalm, is to meditate on these things. And this is a great psalm for that. This is perhaps the ultimate psalm for that. It's the last psalm of David in the Psalter. And it's a kind of fulfillment of all that the Psalter has been leading up to in terms of praise. In Hebrew, this book is called the Book of Praises. And the title of this psalm gives the same word, a song of praise of David. And in that sense, the whole book seems to derive or in part derive its title from this psalm, this psalm of praise, this culminating psalm of praise that draws us into knowing God and understanding God and as we understand him, to praise him. It's a beautiful psalm. Perhaps as we read it, we're a little tempted to say, yeah, yeah, I've heard that stuff before. We can become so familiar with some of these themes that we almost take them for granted, but I hope as we pause and look carefully at this psalm together that we'll see that here really is a great celebration and a great encouragement for us as the people of God leading us to praise Him. One way of looking at this psalm is to see it's really divided into three stanzas. It's like a hymn we have in our books. For Professor Clark's sake, I'll say it's better than a hymn. It's divided into three stanzas. First, a stanza of praise, then a stanza of promise, and then a stanza of prayer. This is a wonderful pattern to think about as we think about celebrating our God. praise him, meditate on his promises, and then pray to him in light of who he is. This psalm as a psalm of praise may first seem simple, but it's very profound. It's very carefully crafted. It's very sophisticated. We need to look at it carefully. And what we see here are some of the real attributes of praise. We have to think about the one who is being praised, the object of our praise. And here, the psalmist concentrates on God as king. Maybe this is a good lesson for us. We can't always say everything about God. We can't always concentrate on everything about God. And here, the psalmist focuses particularly on God as king, as lord, as sovereign, as the one who is majestic, as the one who is in control. And he is being praised both by David as an individual and by the generations of people. That reminds us that praise is both personal and communal. We need both things. We need both our individual experience of praise and our communal experience of praise. And one of the blessings for me and for some of you, I hope, is having been in this church long enough to see generations. Some of the families here I've known four generations. Maybe if I thought more carefully and weren't getting so old, I could even think of five in some cases. But what a blessing to see God's faithfulness through the generations. And this psalm celebrates that as generation succeeds generation, that call to praise continues, that activity of praise continues, so that the generations are united before God in honoring Him as our great King. And we honor Him, this psalm says in our praise, by speaking about Him and singing about Him and stressing that that's done out loud. That's good. That's important, that our praise should be loud, that we should hear it, that others should hear it. We can praise God in our heart. The psalmist stresses the importance of praising Him out loud so that others can hear. And that's so important. We make God known by our praise, by speaking about him and what he's done and his wondrous works. That's what's being celebrated here. Isn't that glorious that we are making him known in our praise? Whether it's here gathered together in church or whether we're out in the world, I sometimes think one of the most successful ways of evangelism is not so much confronting other people as letting the praise in our own hearts for what God has done for us come out in our conversation. And here, we're encouraged to do that, to make God known in our singing and in our speaking. And here, the psalmist focuses particularly on the greatness of God. That's perhaps why he goes on to think about the universality of God's reign, But he's thinking here of a king who is great in what he does. Great in who he is and in his works. He says here, his greatness is unsearchable. Now, there are a lot of things in life that are unsearchable for me. And by that, I usually mean things I would never bother to search. I hear about people who climb Mount Everest. I don't understand that at all. You know, there are comfortable rooms to sit in and read. Why would someone go climb Mount Everest? I don't get it. I don't criticize them necessarily, although you are kind of putting your life at risk. Anyway, never mind. But I am never going to search Mount Everest. It's unsearchable to me. But that's not the way unsearchable is being used here. Unsearchable is the greatness of God in the sense that no matter how much we study it, no matter how much we explore it, no matter how much we dig into it, we'll never reach the end. We'll never have mastered it all. There's always more to find. There's always more to celebrate. And that should be such an encouragement to us. We'll never get bored with it. We'll never have figured it all out. His greatness is unsearchable, and so we can go on with the study forever. And this psalm, as it shows what praise is to be like, also shows how biblical praise is careful praise. This psalm is put together so carefully. You can come at it from all sorts of different angles. We're looking at three stanzas today. But it's also what is known as an alphabetical psalm. Every verse starts with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It's also a chiastic psalm. The center of it is central and it builds up to that center. This is a psalm that you can look at like a diamond with facets from many different angles and see different things. David clearly invested great time and energy to plan and to write this psalm to draw us into the praise of God. And I think that's important because there are lots of people who do not see the Christian life as requiring care. One of the, I think, great principles of Reformed Christianity is that we are called to a careful life. That is a thoughtful life, a reflective life about how God would have us live. And that's characteristic of Reformed worship. We're called to careful worship, reflective worship. We don't just do any old thing that would please us. we want to be careful to please the Lord. And so to our praise here is being shown to us as that which needs to be carefully crafted. That doesn't mean it's without emotion. There's a lot of emotion in this psalm if we ponder it and think about it. But what it means is that we want praise that really pleases God and reflects the carefulness that God calls us to in all of our living before him. As a historian, I look back on the last 50 years and it strikes me that when the history of the last 50 years of Christianity in America and many parts of the world are written, one of the things that will stand out is the change in music in churches in the last 50 years, many, many churches. And there'll be a chapter on praise music of the last 50 years of the 20th century. And some of that praise music is good and a lot of it is bad. But part of the problem with it is a lot of it is kind of shallow. It's not profound. It can be sort of mastered, and the danger is become kind of boring once we've mastered it. But the profoundness that we find in the Psalter, because it is so carefully crafted, because it is structured in such a way to draw us in and to offer ever new elements to us in our understanding of God and of His truth, means that this is praise that will never grow old. We may need new tunes along the way. We're about to get a new Psalter hymnal, Trinity Psalter hymnal. And I first started attending a Dutch Reformed church about 50 years ago, more than that. And when I first went to church as a high school kid, there was a blue psalter hymnal there. I thought maybe there had always been a blue psalter hymnal. What did I know? Maybe the apostles had blue psalter hymnals. Turns out that wasn't true. Turns out when I first started going to that church, the blue psalter hymnal was relatively new. It had only been there a few years. And whenever a hymnal changes, it's kind of traumatic. And it can also be a really good thing. So we're all looking forward to the new Trinity Psalter hymnal with hopes that it will reinvigorate our praise, that it'll draw us more and more to God and to his glory, that it'll give us tunes that'll make it even better to praise God and to be able to enter in to carefully crafted, beautiful praise to glorify our God. And what this psalm shows us then is that that praise to which we're called rests on the promises of God. If verses 1 through 7 of this psalm are particularly the call to praise, then verses 8 through 14 are the promises on which that praise rests. The promise that God is to us a good, loving, merciful God. It's interesting how the psalm shifts there, isn't it? When we think about the greatness of God, it can be somewhat frightening. We can think if God is so great and so holy, is he really approachable? Can he really care for me? Can he really understand me? And this psalm goes on to say, Yes, the glory of our God is that he's not only great, but he's loving. There in verse 8, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Have you heard that before? That echoes through the Old Testament. That is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made. Good to all. Mercy over all. Here's the universality of our God. He's not miserly with His grace and with His love and with His mercy. But it's everywhere for His people. What a beautiful picture of our God and of His goodness and of His mercy. And look at verse 14. The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. Have you ever felt like you were falling? Have you ever felt utterly bowed down by the weight of this world, by the struggles of this life? God has not forgotten you. God is not far from you. God is with you, and he's helping you. He's strengthening you. He's raising you up. It's hard not to think here of the resurrection of our Savior. He was bowed down under the weight of our sin. God raised him up to life, to assure us of life, to promise us life, to bring us life. And so these promises are so rich, so glorious, so full. And then the psalm goes on to celebrate not just the kindness of God in His grace and in His mercy, but to celebrate the kingdom of God. Verses 10 and following, All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom. and tell of your power to make note of the children of men your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your domain endures through all generations now when we study the Bible we find that the kingdom of God has come in phases hasn't it there was a kingdom in the Old Testament the kingdom of Israel and then there's the kingdom that Jesus brought, what are the very first words he spoke? The kingdom of God is at hand. How is the kingdom of God at hand? The kingdom of God is at hand when the king is there. And so Jesus brought the kingdom. And he's promised that that kingdom that he brought will grow in this world as the elector gathered. And he's promised that one day he'll return in glory to make all things new and fulfill the kingdom. And what's fascinating about this section of Psalm 145 is that at every phase of the kingdom, we can sing what's here in Psalm 145. It's a glorious kingdom. It's an everlasting kingdom. And in every period of the history of God's people, that's been true, that he's been building his kingdom and showing its glory and assuring us of its continuing forever. And how gloriously that stands in contrast with all the fleeting glories of this world. All the kingdoms that have passed away despite their apparent permanence. And this should be a great comfort to us when we feel our own weakness, when we feel our own fading, that we may fade and we may weaken, but we remain forever part of his kingdom. And just as that kingdom will one day be renewed in glory, so we will have part in it. We will participate in it. That's the promise. That's the hope that is ours. What a glorious thing. And this section of promise not only talks about the kindness of God and the kingdom of God, but it also talks about how the knowledge of God is going to fill the earth. I think one of the struggles we as Christians in America at our time face is sometimes we begin to think that Christianity seems to be on retreat. That things seem to be getting smaller rather than bigger, weaker rather than stronger. And this psalm assures us that God's kingdom is growing, is strengthening. They shall speak of your glory, verse 11, they shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds. the children of man that's people everywhere that's all people it's so amazing to me when you think that these Israelites in that tiny little country in a tiny little part of the world really believed that their God would one day be known all over the world and the privilege that is granted to us is to live in a time when that's fulfilled. It's still growing. It's not absolutely fulfilled. But it really is true, isn't it, that the kingdom of God is now being manifested. The glories of God are being talked about all around this world. There has been an explosion in the 20th century of the growth of the church of Jesus Christ in parts of the world where it had been little known. And how that should encourage us, how that should thrill us. You know, when you study the kingdoms that have fallen in the history of the world, most of those kingdoms had some kind of religion. and when you study those histories, you find that as the kingdoms fell, so very often the religions disappeared. But that's not been true of Christianity, although it's been closely linked to certain kingdoms in the history of the world. When those kingdoms fell, the kingdom of God continued to prosper, to grow, because the Lord is calling his own. And how we should be encouraged by that, strengthened by that. And when the praise of God fills our hearts and the promises of God fill our minds, then as we find in the third part of this psalm, we really are prepared to pray much more powerfully and effectively. Prayer flows from the promise. And we pray because God has assured us, first of all, as this psalm declares, He'll hear us. What a remarkable thing to think that God hears us. And even more remarkable, this psalm says, He answers us. How do you know that God hears you and answers you? Well, this psalm says one way of knowing that is you're going home to dinner today. Now, that psalm doesn't say that exactly in that way, but verse 15 says, The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. If you have food at home, it's a sign of God's provision. Now, we know God uses secondary sources. He uses farmers, and He uses shoppers, and He uses supermarkets, and He uses cooks. But He doesn't want us to miss the fact that he's the one who gives us food. And the food that he gives us is a sign that he's with us, that he hears us, that he knows us, that he cares for us, that he'll provide for us. And this psalm remarkably says, you know, the God who gives you food, verse 16, is the God who opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. It's not just the food that he gives you. But he satisfies your desires. Now, is that true? No, if we're just talking amongst ourselves, is that true? Do you have all your desires satisfied? It's interesting. The Vatican, just this week, attacked the prosperity gospel, Attacked as a heresy, the American teaching that God promises His people that He will make them healthy and wealthy. If you really believe, you will all be healthy and wealthy. The Vatican labeled that a heresy. It just shows that even the Vatican can get things right. That's a little joke. I did think it's somewhat ironic that the Pope living in maybe the grandest palace on the face of the earth is the one attacking a prosperity gospel, but we're not going there. The point is that Psalm 145 is not promising health and wealth. Psalm 145 is promising he'll give you everything that the people who know the Lord and fear the Lord and believe in the Lord would want. And what is it that we as the people of God most want? We most want to be saved. That's what he gives us. That should be at the very core of our being. Verse 19, he fulfills the desires of those who fear him. he also hears their cry and saves them. That's what this psalm is promising. He promises to save us. He promises to forgive our sins. He promises to empower us by his Holy Spirit. He promises to use us in his service. And he promises to give us eternal life. At such a profound level, what more should we desire? What more should we hope for? What a great God. What a great God whom we should praise, whose promises we should trust, to whom we can go with every need and concern in prayer. So this psalm really is a kind of ultimate praise to God, teaching us to praise Him, to trust His promises, to pray to Him, to live in Him, to grow in Him. And as we do that, then we'll really be encouraged in tough times. And our faith will be built up. And our life will be filled with praise. May that be the confidence of each one of us here today. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, how good you are to us. You have given us your word, and that word points us to you and to our Lord Jesus Christ and his great saving work. And we pray, O Lord, for those who are here today particularly hurting, that this psalm might encourage them and build them up in faith. And we pray for those of us who are not hurting today, O Lord, that this psalm might live in our hearts and in our minds so that when those difficult times come, you will encourage us. Fill us with hope. Fill us with faith. Draw us close to Christ. For it's in his name that we pray. Amen.