DELIGHT AND HONOR
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Opening Prayer
I come with praise and thanksgiving on this Lord’s Day, Father. Thank you that I can worship you in community, that I can know your presence and pleasure.
Read PSALM 149
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Psalm 149
1 Praise the Lord.[a]
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
2 Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
3 Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with timbrel and harp.
4 For the Lord takes delight in his people;
he crowns the humble with victory.
5 Let his faithful people rejoice in this honor
and sing for joy on their beds.
6 May the praise of God be in their mouths
and a double-edged sword in their hands,
7 to inflict vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with fetters,
their nobles with shackles of iron,
9 to carry out the sentence written against them—
this is the glory of all his faithful people.
Praise the Lord.
Footnotes
- Psalm 149:1 Hebrew Hallelu Yah; also in verse 9
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
‘… you are a chosen people … God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.’1
‘Can you speak to God in the shower?’, I once asked a lovely Buddhist couple as we chatted about what prayer might mean. They looked a bit startled and replied that, for them, it had to be in the temple. So I amstruck by this intriguing verse 5: ‘Let his faithful people … sing for joy on their beds’! The exuberant psalmist invites us to praise God at all times and in all places. Even the bed-bound, the insomniacs, and the weary can join the worship of his privileged people. But why?
Possibly composed in the wake of a military victory or following the exile, this song celebrates the astonishing choice of the Lord. He has selected Israel, a seemingly insignificant people on the world stage, to be his own. This God, then and now, honors the humble, favors the faithful. He takes pleasure in those whom no one notices much. For the weak and overlooked, for those living in shame, this public delight in them is life-changing. As I write, I recall radiant believers dancing and singing with all their hearts over drunken shouts in a smelly South American slum: ‘We are so happy because Jesus is here. We feel love. We feel communion.’ God’s chosen people can sing with hope, especially those afflicted by wicked tyrants and systemic injustice. God cares. He fights for them. Their tormentors, who seem invincible, will be put to shame. Evil will not go unpunished. God’s very honor is at stake.
Wherever you are today and however you feel, take time to read this psalm slowly. Let its call come to you. Choose a phrase: ‘be glad’, ‘make music’, ‘a new song’, ‘rejoice in this honor’. Savor it. Relish his delight in you. Your Maker. Your King.
Apply
“God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies.’”2 Hallelujah!
Closing prayer
I confess, Father, that my prayers are often more about what I think I need than focused on your goodness to me. Help me change my perspective so that my life is filled with thanksgiving.
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