Continual Praise – What?

This is the second of six blog posts looking at the first 3 verses of Psalm 34, and attempting to understand the idea of “continual praise”.

Series: Who? | What?| Whom? | When?| How?| Why?

I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.

Psalm xxxiv.1-3

2. What?

In my first blog post on this Psalm, we looked at WHO this psalm was calling to continual praise. The answer was that God is calling individuals, you and I, to praise him, to be in relationship with him, to know him and be known by him.

The second thing I want to look at from these verses is what, exactly, we get to do in relation to God.

Bless – praise – boast – magnify – exalt

If your joy is found in knowing, and being known by, God, then that joy is expressed in worship. That’s what these words are describing.

Bless The Lord

What does it mean to “bless the Lord”? That seems like a strange turn of phrase to our ears. We bless our meals by praying over them. We bless someone who has just sneezed. We know about the Catholic practice of priests blessing the dying parishioner. In the south, we say “bless his heart” right before we say something demeaning about someone.

Bless his heart, he’s just pitiful.

That’s not what David had in mind when he wrote

“I will bless the Lord at all times.”

In this context, it means to express thanks or adoration. But not just thanks, it’s thanks while acknowledging the awesomeness of the giver. Consider these verses.

When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

Deuteronomy viii.10

Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, You are very great:
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.

Psalm civ.1,2

Then David said to Abigail: “Blessed is the LORD God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! And blessed is your advice and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand…

So when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept His servant from evil! For the LORD has returned the wickedness of Nabal on his own head.”

1 Samuel xxv.32,33,39

Also the king said thus, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has given one to sit on my throne this day, while my eyes see it!”

1 Kings i.48

The perfect example of this is found near the end of David’s life, in 1 Chron 29.10-20, where David expresses thanksgiving, but much more than that. He acknowledges, honors, and expresses a deep, heartfelt adoration for who God is, not just what God has given.

These other terms in our text denote various aspects of what it means to “bless the Lord.”

Praise

If we praise someone we express approval, admiration, gratitude, we can “sing someone’s praises” by telling others about their character or accomplishments with approval and admiration.

We often equate praise with singing at a church service, and that is not incorrect. When we sing in worship we are praising God for his character and his mighty deeds in our lives. This is why the lyrics to our music are so important, we want to make sure we’re praising God for who he is, and how he has shown himself to us, keeping the focus on him and not us. Which leads us to the next form of worship included here.

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Psalm xxxiv.2

Boasting

This means to rave about something, to think something so great that you excitedly tell others about it. We face a real problem in our souls here, at least I do. The thing I am most inclined to boast about, is myself. The reason for this self-aggrandizement is pride, I want others to think me great. Notice the second half of verse 2. The humble are not glad to hear someone boasting in themselves because that kind of boasting is full of pride. It is also full of untruth. Boasting in yourself is to lift yourself up for others to admire, to say “I am admirable above everything else I know.” This dishonors God, and gives no joy to others.

But when we lift God up as supremely admirable, when we boast in him, then others take joy in it. Those who are truly humble have trusted in God, rather than themselves. When we speak with excitement of the greatness of God, it confirms them in their trust in this same God.

Our very salvation is set up so that we may boast in God alone.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Ephesians ii.8,9

We can’t boast in ourselves. Apart from Christ we have nothing to boast about. Any good we do have to boast about is Christ in us, so that we don’t boast of ourselves, but in the cross of Christ. (Gal 6.14)

Here’s the situation in which David wrote Psalm 34. King Saul wanted to kill him, so he goes on the run and flees to Gath seeking refuge. In Gath, the king’s servants recognize David as a hero of Israel, and David becomes fearful that they will seize him. So he pretends to have lost his mind. He runs around drawing on the walls with a crayon and drooling in his beard. They let him go, and he escaped to some caves and wrote this Psalm.

So what David is saying here is:

“The best idea I had was to act like a madman. Yet God saved me from certain death.”

There are two more descriptors for worship in verse 3.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.

Psalm xxxiv.3

Magnify

Here David invites others to magnify the Lord with him. To magnify something is to make something appear larger than it normally would. There are two reasons that you would magnify something. The first is that it is so small you need to magnify it to see it. The second is that it is at such a great distance that you need to magnify it to get a sense of its actual size.

That second sense is the way we magnify God. He is so vast and magnificent, but sometimes you just feel that he is at a great distance from you. He’s not, he is close to those who know him. Verse 18 tells us he is near the brokenhearted. The whole sense of the Psalm is that God is near to those who humble themselves and seek his deliverance.

But…when pressed by the concerns of life, the stress of work and family, our vision gets clouded and we can’t see God near us. So David invites others to join him in making God clear to one another. Like a telescope brings the vast expanses of distant stars into view for the one who looks through it, so the praise of God’s people brings God’s magnificence into view for those whose spiritual sight is weakened by the cares of this life.

Exalt

To exalt the name of the Lord is to raise it up to its proper place or status. Actually the sense of the Hebrew here is to heave up with all your strength. To say,

“Here it is! This should command your attention, your affection, your honor!”

Bless the Lord oh my soul!

So this is how David describes worship in these three verses. It is something that engages our minds, our affections, our emotions, our strength, our whole being. It is vigorous, substantial, and full of exuberant joy.

I don’t know about you, but I WANT to worship the Almighty God like that!