As people of faith, we are people of praise. As the psalmist says, “Let my whole being bless the Lord! Let everything inside me bless God’s holy name!” God has done amazing things for us. God has provided us with life. God has claimed us and named us as Beloved Children of God. God has kept God’s promises. God has made a way out of no way. We come to church, we lift our voices in praise not because of what we have done but because of what God has done, because of who God is, because we know God is at work in this world. At the heart of our faith is this: we praise God from whom all blessings flow!
August 31, 2025
Five Smooth Stones, Part 5
“Praise: More than Words”
Psalm 103: 1-11
Rev. Dr. Heather W. McColl
Psalm 103: 1-11
Let my whole being praise the Lord! Let everything inside me praise God’s holy name! Let my whole being praise the Lord and never forget all God’s good deeds: how God forgives all your sins, heals all your sickness, saves your life from the pit, crowns you with faithful love and compassion, and satisfies you with plenty of good things so that your youth is made fresh like an eagle’s. The Lord works righteousness; does justice for all who are oppressed. God made his ways known to Moses; made his deeds known to the Israelites. The Lord is compassionate and merciful, very patient, and full of faithful love. God won’t always play the judge; he won’t be angry forever. He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin or repay us according to our wrongdoing, because as high as heaven is above the earth, that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
Praise: More than Words Psalm 103: 1-11
I thought I had saved the “easiest” smooth stone for the last part of our series. After all, praise is what we do as people of faith. It is why we are here…to worship God, to praise God, to give thanks to God from whom all blessings flow. We give praise to God in response to God’s grace and God’s love in our lives, minute by minute, day after time. We praise God because we know God is with us. We come together and lift our voices in praise, knowing God has done great things for us, that God continues to do great things for us. As people of faith, we praise our God because we know, we know that death and destruction are not the end of the story. All of these are reasons for why we lift songs, give shouts of joy, why we lift words of praise to our God. If there is something we as people of faith know to do, it is to give praise to our God. Ok that and eating at potlucks. But first and foremost, we are people of praise. That’s why this should have been an “easy” sermon to write.
And yet when I sat down to write this sermon, I discovered the opposite is actually true, meaning that although we are people of praise, it is not something we share all that much, which makes it the most difficult stone to practice and embrace as part of our spiritual journey.
Or let me say it this way…after this week, ok let’s be real with each other…after the last few months, with each day bringing more and more feelings of being constantly battered by the bad news of our world, each day bringing more and more feelings of being overwhelmed by the craziness of the world, craziness which has the power to unmoor us from bearings, craziness which seems to sweep our feet out from underneath us, so much so that we can no longer feel our sure foundation, in the midst of all that, I find myself asking…how in the world with all this mess, in the midst of all this craziness, how in the world am I supposed to bring a word about praise? To which the universe replied…how can you not? In the midst of all this craziness, why do you keep from singing? It was then I knew I had my answer, the answer which lies in the verses of Psalm 130 which I invite us to hear again…
Let my whole being praise the Lord! Let everything inside me praise God’s holy name! Let my whole being praise the Lord and never forget all God’s good deeds: how God forgives all your sins, heals all your sickness, saves your life from the pit, crowns you with faithful love and compassion, and satisfies you with plenty of good things so that your youth is made fresh like an eagle’s. The Lord works righteousness; does justice for all who are oppressed. God made his ways known to Moses; made his deeds known to the Israelites. The Lord is compassionate and merciful, very patient, and full of faithful love. God won’t always play the judge; he won’t be angry forever. He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin or repay us according to our wrongdoing, because as high as heaven is above the earth, that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
Let me say that last verse again… that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor God. Knowing that, how can we keep from singing? Knowing that, how can we not praise God from whom blessings flow? What the psalmist understands is that praise is not just about the hymns, or the praise bands. Praise is not just about making a joyful noise until the Lord. It is not just about the words we say in worship. Praise is also about our mindset, our attitude. It is about knowing that our very being is held secure by our God, our God who is faithful from generation to generation, our God who renews us and restores us, our God who has named us and claimed us as God’s very own.
Unfortunately, as people of faith, we are very good at going through the motions. We come to church. We sing the songs. We take communion and then we go home. Never really asking ourselves if we opened ourselves to the Holy Spirit in our midst while we were in the sanctuary, opened ourselves to the holy in our midst, the holy which makes everything, everything extraordinary.
Because that is exactly what our psalmist is experiencing in today’s text. He is opening his body, his mind, his very being to the holy in his midst. He is reveling, yes reveling in the great things God has done, in the great things God continues to do in his life, continues to do for God’s people. This psalmist understands that praise is more than the words we say in worship. It is even more than a sense of joy at being named and claimed as God’s own beloved. Praise is knowing, knowing that God is God and no power here on earth can ever separate us from the love of God, that the nations of this earth may rumble and roar, but God is here, and God will not be moved. Praise is knowing, celebrating, embracing, reveling in the hope that our story, no matter what, our story does not end in death and destruction.
What I am continuing to discover along my faith journey is that it is all about choice. It is all about choosing to live in, to live out the narrative which brings me life, brings my hope, brings me comfort, which brings me joy! I could, we could easily choose day in and day out to focus on the fear, to allow worry to overwhelm us, to throw our hands up in the air and say, “What’s the point?”
Or…or I can choose, we can choose to praise God, to remember that since the beginning of time, God has been moving in among the people of God, bringing about healing and wholeness, that God has and continues to show up in surprising and life giving ways, ways which invite us to live in community, ways which remind us over and over again that this world will not have the last word. Given all that, how can I, how can we keep from singing? How can we keep from praising our God?
You see, you may be surprised to know that we as people of faith, we as Christians have a reputation for being very grumpy, very sad, very dour people. Most people, when asked what is the purpose of the Church, words like sin, shame, guilt and repentance are the first ones that come to mind. But that is not why Jesus came. We are told for God so loved the world that God sent God’s only Son so that we might live. That’s the good news. That’s the Gospel message. That’s the life-giving news which turned our world upside down, news which is still sending ripple effects of healing and wholeness throughout the universe. Or what Jesus’ birth stories? There was singing from the highest heavens. There was praise from angels. There were shouts of joy from heaven and Earth. Even in the Gospel of Matthew, when it talks about Jesus being here to save people from sin, it is not in the context of punishment. It was and is a powerful reminder that God was, that God is with God’s people now and forevermore!
That is why we lift our voices in song! That is why we are here in worship! That is why we praise our God–not because of what we have done but because of what God has done, because of who God is. We praise our God because we know God is at work in this world bringing about healing and wholeness for all of God’s people.
As people of faith, we lift our voices in praise in all things, through all things because…we know that “No storm can shake our inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since Love is lord of heav’n and earth, how can I keep from singing? May it be so. Amen.
See also: Theology Tuesday for Sunday, August 31, 2025 – Praise: More than Words Psalm 103: 1-11.
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