Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord)

The final Psalm (150) exhorts everything that has breath to praise the Lord. And again, “Praise the Lord!”

Let me be up front: praise and worship is not all about music. If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts or simply know my heart (or your bible), you know this to be true. Worship is a lifestyle, not just a musical genre. However, I am going to focus more heavily on music within this blog post as I reflect on the events of this past week. I was blessed to, once again, attend Sing! (Getty Music Worship Conference) in Nashville, TN and boy did we sing… a LOT!

Keith and Kristyn Getty have been resourcing the church with solid worship songs, both in theology and musicality, for multiple decades as they lead modern hymn-writing efforts. They desire for God’s people to be a singing church as God has created, compelled, and commanded us to be. If you want to know their heart (which I also share) in a nutshell, read their book Sing!

The Getty’s aren’t the only people producing modern hymns for God’s people. Among the vast and growing number of song-writers for the church, are worship leaders Matt Papa and Matt Boswell. Both the Getty’s and the “Matt’s” premiered their latest albums during the conference and I fell in love with their exciting new hymn, Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord). Read the following excerpt from Matt Papa about the new hymn.

The book of Psalms beautifully and famously shows the breadth and depth of human emotion. It helps us “feel” our faith. in many of our songs in the past we have explored the reality of our sorrows, but with Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord), we wanted to emphasize the power of how the book of Psalms culminates – in overwhelming joy and praise! I think in 150 being the final Psalm God is teaching us something – that sorrows are real, confusion will happen, the journey is long – but it all crescendos in praise. There is an exclamation point! Joy is where we are headed. The world knows it. The seas know it. The mountains know it. And we can get in on it. ~ Matt Papa

As a worship leader, I love passages such as Psalm 150. It’s one of our “go-to” Psalms as we call God’s people to worship Him. So excuse me as I geek out over this new hymn that expounds upon this final Psalm. (Not to mention it has a modulation at the perfect place in the song and the tag at the end just gets me every time.) This song helps us to rightly focus our lives on who God is, what He has done, and the promises that He’s made and kept. When we come to the end of the Psalms, we come to the end of a journey filled with an array of emotion and we arrive at the beginning of our forever as believers: worship of the Lord. One day it will be in His glorious presence.

As Matt Papa said above, we can get in on this now! Spend your days praising the Lord. He deserves it. I encourage you to use the video below to help you get started.