Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript*

*Robert L. Hutcherson, Jr.*

*Quinn** Chapel A.M.E.

Church*

*                                        Sermon Preparation~/Delivery*

                                                        *Psalm 150*

*/“Praise The Lord…and Be Free”/*

*The Rev. Karla J. Cooper, **Pastor*

*April 15, 200**7*

\\ \\ Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript

*TEXT*

* *

/"Praise the LORD!

Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse./

/ Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.

Praise Him with trumpet sound; Praise Him with harp and lyre./

/ Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.

Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with resounding cymbals./

/ Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD!" (Psalms 150:1-6 NASBR)/

 

*BODY*

 

*Whether it's a Broadway play like CATS or a classic movie like THE SOUND OF MUSIC, most people enjoy a good musical.

But have you ever wondered what it is about such productions that appeals to us?

After all, musicals are decidedly UNlike real life.

In THE SOUND OF MUSIC people burst into song constantly--during dinner, while delivering telegrams.

That's just how it goes in musicals--people sing at the oddest moments.

But if you were standing in line at McDonald's and a woman suddenly started crooning a ballad to her children, you'd take a step aside.

Or if you were on an airplane flying to Conneticut and the man behind you suddenly started to sing, Frank Sinatra-like, "Come Fly with Me," you would no doubt panic at being seated so close to a weirdo!

Life is definitely NOT like a musical!

In our society singing is a increasingly rare event, restricted largely to church.

If you've ever been at a funeral attended by mostly non-churchgoing folks, then you know sometimes how dismal the singing can be.

The simple fact is that outside church people just don't get as much practice in group singing anymore.

Nevertheless, there is something deep down inside most folks that wants to sing.

How often have you glanced in your rearview mirror while waiting for a red light only to see the person behind you singing along with the radio with all they’ve got!

At outdoor concerts there are usually lots of folks singing along with the performer up on the stage.

Karaoke contests have enjoyed immense popularity in recent years.

And many of us know that singing in the shower is not something that only OTHER people do! *

* *

*Music touches us on a level which ordinary speech does not reach.

Music can soothe, comfort, enliven, and lift our hearts.

Why is it, for instance, that at a funeral we can recite something like the Apostles' Creed without batting an eye and yet fall apart when it's time to sing "How Great Thou Art"?

Why is it that sometimes you can hear the merest snatch of a certain tune and suddenly tears leap to your eyes as you are transported back to a time when your children were young or when you and your spouse got engaged?

*

*“The Gypsy Rover came over the hill,*

*Bound through the valley so shady, *

*He whistled and he sang*

*‘till the green woods rang,*

*And he won the heart of a lady.”*

*Or, in terms of a worship service, why is it that when a teenager wants to rebel, singing is often the first thing he or she refuses to do?

Few postures of defiance bother me more than when I see someone, young or old, who stands in the midst of the congregation, arms folded across their chest, lips clamped tightly shut while everyone around them is singing praises to God.

Perhaps those people don't sing because they refuse to let themselves become as caught up in worship as music inevitably forces a person to be.

*

* *

*Because as Psalm 150 makes clear, music IS a defining force in Christian worship.

Psalm 150 is perhaps the Bible's single grandest statement of praise.

It is also the grand finalé to the Book of Psalms.

Like that final cascading shower of fireworks and rapid-fire booms, bangs, bursts, and blooms on the Fourth of July, so also Psalm 150's grand finalé stuns you with its swift succession of images and staccato flurry of praise commands.

*

* *

*But you’ve got to read this psalm the right way to appreciate how much power it packs.

I hope most of you are aware that when you read the words "Praise the LORD" in the Book of Psalms, you’re reading not some dull statement but you’re receiving a fiery command!

In the original Hebrew the phrase HALLELU YAH is in the imperative mood.

Literally translated it means "Praise Yahweh."

But you are supposed to read those words while also picturing a finger wagging in your face or maybe thumping you in the chest.

This represents the psalmist "getting in your face."

Here the psalmist is going nose-to-nose with the reader, getting so close you can smell  his breath as he shouts, "You!

Yes, you!

Grab an instrument, open your mouth, and get going!

Praise God!

I mean it!

Move! Sing! Dance!

Show some respect!" *

* *

*This is the praise command.

This is the psalmist as army drill sergeant, barking to the world his order to worship.

Actually, the structure of Psalm 150 at first keeps you in suspense as to just who is being addressed.

From verses 1-5 we get a rapid-fire string of eleven commands.

But only in verse 6, at the end, are we told who is being commanded.

And guess what?

It's everybody!

It's everything that has breath, which includes not only every person on the planet but also hippos and three-toed sloth.

*

* *

*How many of you took a breath in the past few moments…raise your hand if that’s you…everybody?

Well, that’s good…for a number of reasons!

But where are you going with this, Brother Robert?

Why do you ask?

Because if you've got breath in your lungs, you have received the gift of life from God himself.

If you breathe, you show by that very action that you've come from the workshop of a Master Craftsman--the one who blew oxygen into Adam's nostrils in the very beginning and who now does the same for you.

According to Psalm 150 the very first thing you should do with that breath is exhale it back to God in praise!

*

* *

*But today, as when this psalm was first written, this universal call to praise the God of Israel is a scandal and offense to most folks.

People don't like to be told what to do, particularly in the area of religion.

Religion is a private matter.

It's nobody else's business.

You believe what you want to believe and I'll do the same.

What's true for you does not need to be true for me.

So let's just leave one another alone on the subject.

Or as the commercial says: “I know where you’re at…and you know where I’m at…so why don’t we just leave it at that.”*

* *

*Of course, we properly object to the notion that all religions say pretty much the same thing.

We object to the notion that truth is relative to the point that we're not allowed to assert the truth of our Christian faith.

The point is that there is an inherent scandal in Psalm 150's strident calls to praise God.

This is not going to be well-received by everyone who has breath.

Yet if we believe in this God, if we perceive the power and greatness and grandeur of which Psalm 150 speaks, and if we believe that THIS very God is the beginning and end of all creatures, then we must find ways to obey and so issue this praise command ourselves.

*

* *

*And as Psalm 150 makes clear, it is through music that we will do this first and best of all.

Because music does indeed move us and involve us in a way ordinary speech does not, as we said earlier.

Yet it is precisely music that has been creating all manner of havoc in the wider church world in the so-called "worship wars" of recent years.

Exactly because music is so powerful and so vital, people feel passionately about it.

Indeed, given what Psalm 150 tells us about music's central place in worship, doesn't it make sense that the devil would want to corrupt it, make it a cause of division instead of unity?

Because in the devil's ears all praise of God sounds like the worst of screeching.

So if he can stop it, turn it, make us so tired of it that we just want to halt it, then the devil has cut down on what he regards as the cosmos' worst noise pollution.