The Final Crescendo Text: Psalm 150:1-2
Introduction: The Doxological Necessity
We come now to the end of the Psalter, the great hymnbook of the people of God. And how does it end? It does not end with a question, or a lament, or a quiet meditation. It ends with a thunderous, deafening, glorious explosion of praise. Psalm 150 is the doxological capstone on the entire building. It is the final, sustained crescendo after a long and beautiful symphony. If the Psalms teach us how to talk to God, and they do, then they teach us that all our talk, all our prayers, all our laments, all our imprecations, must ultimately resolve into this. They must resolve into praise.
The world we live in is a noisy place. It is filled with the clamor of advertising, the shrieking of political pundits, the endless chatter of social media, and the dull hum of anxiety. But this is not praise. It is noise. It is the sound of a creation that has forgotten its purpose. The purpose of every atom, every star, every angel, and every man is to praise its Creator. When a thing does what it was created to do, there is glory. A horse running is glory. A star shining is glory. A man praising God is glory.
This final psalm is a command performance. The word "Praise" appears thirteen times in just six verses. This is not a polite suggestion. It is a divine summons. It is a call to get in tune with reality itself. To refuse to praise God is not to assume a neutral position; it is to be in active, screeching rebellion against the way the world is actually constructed. It is an attempt to live against the grain of the universe. This psalm, therefore, is not just a happy song for the end of a songbook. It is a description of the final state of all things. It is a prophetic glimpse into the future of the cosmos, when every created thing will do what it was made to do. It is a command for us to get with the program now.
In these first two verses, the psalmist lays the foundation for this final crescendo. He tells us where to praise God and why to praise God. He gives us the location and the motivation for our worship. If we get this right, everything else will follow.
The Text
Praise Yah!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
Praise Him according to the abundance of His greatness.
(Psalm 150:1-2 LSB)
The Where of Worship (v. 1)
The first verse establishes the location, the venue for our praise. And it is all-encompassing.
"Praise Yah! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse." (Psalm 150:1)
The psalm begins with "Hallelujah," which is a command: "You all, praise Yah." Yah is the covenant name of God. This is a call to the covenant people. And where are they to do this? First, "in His sanctuary." The sanctuary was the epicenter of Israel's worship. It was the temple, the place where God had condescended to place His name, where heaven and earth met. For us, in the new covenant, the sanctuary is the gathered church. It is here, when we assemble on the Lord's Day, that we offer up our formal, corporate, covenantal praise. This is not optional. Praise is not a solitary affair. God has a people, and that people must praise Him together, as a body.
This is the starting point. Our praise begins in the focused, disciplined, ordered worship of the saints. It is not a vague, sentimental feeling. It is an act. It is something we do, together, in the place God has appointed. This is inside the sanctuary.
But it does not stay there. We are also to praise Him "in His mighty expanse." The old King James says "the firmament of his power." This is the heavens, the sky, the cosmos. The praise that begins in the church on Sunday morning is meant to spill out and fill the entire world. It is praise inside and praise outside. It is praise in the sacred space and praise in all of creation. These two locations are not in conflict; they are concentric. The worship in the sanctuary is the engine room for the worship that is to fill the earth.
Our gathered worship is a declaration to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:10). The angels are watching. The demons are watching. The entire cosmos is the theater for the glory of God. When we sing our psalms here, in this building, the sound is to echo in the highest heavens. We praise God in His sanctuary, and by doing so, we are joining the chorus that is already happening in His mighty expanse. The sun, moon, and stars praise Him by their silent, obedient glory. We are to praise Him with our articulate, vocal, joyful obedience.
The Why of Worship (v. 2)
Having established where we are to praise, the psalmist now gives us the reason. He provides the substance of our praise. Why should we praise Him? Verse 2 gives us two foundational reasons.
"Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to the abundance of His greatness." (Psalm 150:2 LSB)
First, we praise Him for what He has done: "Praise Him for His mighty deeds." Our God is not a static philosophical principle or an abstract "higher power." He is the living God who acts. He has stepped into history and accomplished great things. Our praise is grounded in objective, historical fact. We praise Him for the mighty act of creation out of nothing. We praise Him for the mighty act of the flood, judging a wicked world and saving a remnant. We praise Him for the mighty act of calling Abraham and making a people for Himself. We praise Him for the mighty act of the Exodus, shattering the gods of Egypt and rescuing His people. We praise Him for the mighty act of the conquest of Canaan.
And above all these things, we praise Him for the mightiest deed of all: the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. At the cross, God performed His mightiest deed, disarming the rulers and authorities and triumphing over them. In the resurrection, He displayed His power by raising Jesus from the dead, installing Him as King over all creation. Our praise is not empty flattery. It is a recital of God's resume. We are simply telling the truth about what He has done.
But our praise does not stop with what God does. It moves to who God is. We are to praise Him "according to the abundance of His greatness." The Hebrew is literally "according to the multitude of His greatness." This is not just about His deeds; it is about His being. We are praising His attributes. We praise Him because He is holy, and we are not. We praise Him because He is sovereign, and we are dependent. We praise Him because He is wise, and we are foolish. We praise Him because He is good, and all goodness flows from Him.
His greatness is not meager or scarce. It is an abundance, a multitude. It is an ocean without a shore. You can never exhaust the reasons to praise God because His very nature is inexhaustible. His greatness is the ultimate reason for praise. He is worthy not just because of what He gives us, but because of who He is. If He never did another thing for us, He would still be worthy of all praise, honor, and glory, forever and ever, simply because He is God. This is the bedrock of all true worship. We praise what He does because of who He is.
Conclusion: The Logic of Hallelujah
These two verses set the stage for the orchestra that is about to be unleashed in the rest of the psalm. The logic is simple and powerful. We, the people of God, are to gather in His sanctuary. From that central point, our praise is to extend to the farthest reaches of His creation. And the content of that praise is twofold: we recount His mighty acts in history, chief among them the victory of Jesus Christ, and we adore the abundant, infinite greatness of His character.
This is our task. This is our joy. This is our warfare. When we praise God rightly, we are pushing back against the darkness. We are declaring that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. We are reminding ourselves and telling the world that history is not a random series of events but is the unfolding story of God's mighty deeds. We are declaring that God's infinite greatness is the most important fact in the universe.
Therefore, let us take up this great work. Let us praise Him in the sanctuary. Let us praise Him in our homes, in our work, and in our world. Let us praise Him for what He has done. And let us praise Him for who He is. Hallelujah.