This psalm depicts a person who has overcome all the enemies and afflictions and traps life has thrown at them (3, 12, 15). If this song had been written during the New Covenant church era (rather than the Old Covenant Israel era), it would depict a person who confidently stands against forces of darkness that seek to entrap them, a societal world system that seeks to engulf them, and their own mortal bodies that seek to enslave them. They are victorious. They are overcomers.
The major element of this overcoming life the song points out is a commitment to praise. This commitment is seen at the beginning of our psalm:
I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. (Psalm 9:1–2)
And then we are invited into this commitment to a life of praise later on in the psalm:
Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! (Psalm 9:11)
But before we inspect this commitment to praise, we must look at the psalm for two reasons we should make this commitment to praise.
Why? Because He's Praiseworthy. (3-10)
First, David (the author) tells us to commit to a life of praise because God is—on multiple levels—praiseworthy. One level of his praiseworthiness is that he is our stronghold in times of trouble (9-10). David had personal experience with this part of God—he had spent many nights in caves and the wilderness because he was on the run from enemies. At those moments, God was a shelter better than any cave and a stronghold better than any fortress. God had never left him or forsaken him (Heb. 13:5).
- David recounts how God turned back his enemies (3).
- They didn't stand a chance in God's presence, so they stumbled and perished (3).
- He had watched foes like Saul and Goliath and nations like the Edomites try to rise up against him, but to no avail because God was victorious (5-6).
And another level of God's praiseworthiness that David articulates is that God is enthroned forever as the righteous judge (4, 7-8). And no one could knock God off his throne.
- The very memory of his past enemies had perished, but God continues on judging the world with righteousness (6, 8).
- David was confident in God's past and future judgments—God's decisions, David thought, are always right.
- This is a major component of this psalm. David knew there was lots of evil to unravel, but he thought of God as up to the task. We must think this way as well.
During some of my recent travels, a friend and I went to a popular restaurant on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. It was a highly rated place. As we ate, I told him about a favorite pastime in our family—reading the one-star reviews of highly popular places. So, there in our booth, we proceeded to read the one-stars on that restaurant. Soon, we came across a very recent and scathing review, one that named the waiter. The comments were hysterical. Knowing there was another side to this story, I asked if the waiter was working that day. Soon, our waiter came and said, "You read the review? Here's what really happened." He proceeded to regale us with a wild version that sounded nothing like the online review. Then, as he concluded, the actual named waiter came to our table. He proceeded to tell us another version, a bit tamer than the others. We were crying with laughter together.
But, after we left, I began thinking, I just heard three different accounts. Who in the world was right? If three human beings can't even see a simple restaurant altercation clearly, how can humans judge all that is right and wrong? Only our God in heaven can successfully judge, and David praised God for this level of his praiseworthiness.
So God is praiseworthy because he is our stronghold and the righteous judge.
Why? Because He's Trustworthy (13-20)
But it is also good to commit to a life of praise because God is trustworthy. To say God is, as we've said up to this point, praiseworthy is to look backward. To say God is trustworthy is to look forwards. And in the prayer, David peered into the future and saw two elements of God's trustworthiness on full display.
First, he recognized God would rescue his people. In confidence, he asked for God's grace and for God to see the affliction that came from the hand of his enemies (13). He believed God would lift him from the very gates of death itself—and that he would praise God with God's people after God saved them (13-14). David also realized that God could not forget people who are needy, and that the poor would not perish forever (18). David's perspective reminds us of Jesus' words:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
Second, David also recognized that God would judge all wickedness. Evil had not escaped God's sight, so David rejoiced that God would sink the nations in the pit they made and catch them in the net they hid to trap God's people (15). In a sweeping reversal, just when evil seems to have the upper hand, God will overturn their successes and defeat them. Just as Joseph ascended to Pharaoh's right hand after his brothers sold him into slavery, or Judas betrayed Jesus yet became a fulfillment of God's plan, or Haman was hung in the gallows he'd built for Mordecai, so God will instigate a great reversal one day.
The weak will be strong. The poor will be rich. The blind will see. God will make all things right. Nothing evil will go unjudged by our God. On that day, just as David prayed, the nations will know that they are (only) men (20).
So I Will Praise Him (1-2, 11-12)
So David, knowing that God is both praiseworthy for his actions in the past and trustworthy for the future, made a commitment to praise. And we can do the same. We look back to the cross and see the praiseworthiness of Christ. He won the ultimate victory over sin and death that holy weekend. And, because he was so faithful in the past, we can trust him with the future, one where he will subdue all that is out of line with his righteousness and lift up those who have humbly trusted him to wash them of their sins.
But let's go back to David's commitment to praise. What did it look like? How did he make this commitment? This is what we will consider for the remainder of our study.
1. With Thanks (1)
First, David said he would give thanks to the Lord (1). Thanksgiving is a major component of praise. A recent article put out by Harvard University's health department recounted various studies that have demonstrated the physical and mental benefits of being regularly thankful. In one study, a group was asked to write things they were thankful for from the previous week. A second was asked to write about irritations and things that displeased them. And a final group was told to merely write about the events but not to emphasize their positive or negative nature. After ten weeks, the gratitude group was "more optimistic and felt better about their lives...they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation."[^1]
In another study, a psychologist from Penn tried various interventions to increase people's happiness. Of everything his department tried, the greatest impact on personal happiness came the week he tasked them with writing and personally delivering a letter of gratitude to someone in their lives they had never properly thanked.[^2]
And the Bible invites us into this life of thankfulness. Paul told us not to "be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to let our requests be made known to God" (Phil. 4:6). He also spoke of the blessing of "giving thanks always and for everything to God," to "rejoice always," and to "give thanks in all circumstances" (Eph 5:20, 1 Th. 5:16, 18). And Psalm 69:30 invites us to "magnify God with thanksgiving" (Ps. 69:30). To magnify God is to put our attention on him—he does not get any bigger with our thanksgiving, but he appears bigger to us because we've magnified him through thanksgiving.
2. With The Whole Heart
Second, David said he would give this thanks "with his whole heart" (1). He refused to worship a holy, majestic, and glorious God with half-hearted, limp praise. He committed his whole body and soul into the act of worship. David was a man who faced lots of conflict and obstacles in life, and by concentrating on worshipping God with his whole heart, David's trust in God grew. His worship was not a therapeutic moment that let him forget his troubles for a second, but a transfer of his energies and worries and concerns over to God. His whole heart went in God's direction. He was committed to this level of praise.
And it is noteworthy that this was a decision David made. We often think of enthusiastic worship that happens when the timing, the environment, and the musicianship are right. But worshipping God—though it can be aided by music and setting—does not require that we "set the mood." That's not how God designed the collective Sunday gathering of his church. Think about it, the church meets publicly every Sunday. Even your favorite musician or band would have a hard time moving you emotionally fifty-two Sunday mornings a year. What this must mean is that a commitment to praise requires a daily decision to worship God with the whole heart.
And, because God is always praiseworthy (the past) and trustworthy (the future), if we set our minds on him, we can praise him anytime we choose, whether or not we were initially "in the mood." Let's allow this to become more and more who we are, a people with the praise of God fully on our lips.
3. By Recounting His Deeds (1)
Third, David said he would recount all of God's wonderful deeds (1). Wonderful deeds is one word in Hebrew, often used of miracles, but also about the daily experiences of life and the hidden glories of Scripture.[^3] A wonderful deed is anything God does that inspires wonder and amazement at him and his ability. This could mean things that we, from our vantage point, easily consider as "good," but also the mysterious "all things" that God will "work together for good" (Romans 8:28).
One simple conclusion anyone who's interacted with the Psalms should come to is that there is power in recounting God's deeds. Being more open in our praise of God has a massive effect on our lives. As D.A. Carson said:
"What we need is a prayer life that...tells the people of God what we thank God for."[^4]
Tell yourself, tell your loved ones, tell your friends, tell your life group—tell people about ways God has been faithful to you. I can't tell you how many times I have been lifted out of despair by simply retelling God what I remember him doing in my life. David committed to this discipline of verbalizing God's work in his life, and I think it's a significant reason God used him the way he did.
4. With Singing (2, 11)
Fourth, David said he would praise God with singing, and because David knew it is good for us to sing to God together, he encouraged all other believers to do the same (2, 11). This is another element of praise the modern medical community has recognized. Various studies have pointed to communal singing as a way to relieve stress, release endorphins, gain a heightened sense of belonging and connection, help process grief, and improve your mood. One study even suggests it can help snoring problems by changing the way you breathe![^5]
When we sing to God together, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, it is the voice of the church that is heard in the singing. It is not I who sing but the church, and I get to share in its song.[^6] Singing about God's faithfulness is another way to awaken us to the truth about God and for us to recall that we belong to him. It is a way to remember we are part of his bride here on earth, that we are God's people!
5. By Telling Others (11)
Fifth, David said we should praise God by telling others about God's goodness. He said, "Tell among the people his deeds" (11). I hold the conviction that good preaching will ultimately be good praising—that in the preaching of the word God should be elevated and esteemed by the preacher. I want my sermons to exalt and rejoice over the gospel, and I believe this will lead us to glorify, love, honor, hallow, and esteem Jesus' name more than ever—Jesus Famous! David saw it this way: we must praise God by preaching. But not just from pulpits, but to one another throughout everyday life.
A couple of months ago, on a beach in Tahoe, I witnessed the cutest scene. Our beach spot was flanked by two little families, each with, as we were soon to find out, a four-year-old. The family to our left had a little boy. Without any siblings, he played alone in the sand. Soon, a little girl from the other side of us approached him, and they started playing together. After hours of playing together and giving each other details about their lives—including their age—the boy said, "I'm Xander." "Sander?" said the girl. "No, Xander. X-A-N-D-E-R," he exclaimed. She said, "I'm Cali, and I also know how to spell my name. It's C..." After a long pause, she ran away. Adorable.
But I love that childlike freedom, approaching and playing and enjoying life together with others. And I wish we could get better at broadcasting—even if only to the people we love—how good God has been to us. For some reason—maybe pain or pride or shame or embarrassment—we often aren't very open about God's faithfulness to us. Perhaps we could become more like simple children, willing to approach and open up about God's good work in our lives. After all, we are meant to broadcast his goodness. As Peter said:
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
Conclusion
A commitment to regularly and faithfully praise God is of utmost importance in the life of faith. Throughout the entire Old Testament, God's people struggled to keep the feasts, holy days, and Sabbaths that were designed to keep them in the lane of praise. And when they faltered—when they wandered from the path of praise—they inevitably lost their power, grew weak, and succumbed to the pressures and people around them.
The same is true for God's people today. The world system, the powers of darkness, and our own mortal bodies are all pulling us and preaching to us in an attempt to weaken and defeat us. But God is praiseworthy and trustworthy, so we must commit to a life of regular, ongoing, faithful praise.
When songs of worship play, we must discipline ourselves to grab ahold of the lyrics and sing them in faith to God. When each day's dawn unfolds, we must utter thanksgiving and worship to God for who he is and what he has done. And when the injustices and evils of our world are thrown in our faces, we must cry out in praise to a God who is on his throne and will not allow it to continue unjudged.
And we know we can trust God's infinite wisdom—wisdom far beyond our own—because of the wisdom of the cross. It is unlike anything the mind of man could conceive. We either dream of a God who is obligated to uncritically forgive everyone or a God who is bound to ruthlessly judge everyone. But God succumbs to neither extreme. Instead, he rises so far above the wisdom of man. He made foolish the wisdom of the world by instituting the cross of his Son—and it stumbles some and is foolish to others, but it is the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:20). And, in the cross, we gain confidence that God will both judge evil and extend forgiveness to everyone willing to receive it. In the cross, we see a praiseworthy and trustworthy God. In the cross, we always have a reason to commit to praise.
[^1]: “Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier.” 2021. Harvard Health. August 14, 2021. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier.
[^2]: “Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier.” 2021. Harvard Health. August 14, 2021. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier.
[^3]: Kidner, Derek. 2014. Psalms 1-72. Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press.
[^4]: Carson, D. A. 2015. Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation. 2nd ed. Ada, OK: Baker Academic.
[^5]: Rebecca Joy Stanborough, M. F. A. 2020. “Benefits of Singing: 10 Ways Singing Boosts Your Health.” Healthline. November 10, 2020. https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-singing.
[^6]: Kim, Jay Y., and Scot Mcknight. 2020. Analog Church - Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.