¹Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; ²sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious. ³Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! Because of the greatness of Your power Your enemies will give feigned obedience to You. ⁴“All the earth will worship You, and will sing praises to You; They will sing praises to Your name.” Selah.

Taking paise to the next level comes from the refining fire of God’s love. What is the next level? The first four verses give a taste, where the psalm writer launches into an unadulterated, uninhibited, unrestrained, and unqualified call to “all the earth” to sing praise to the Jewish God (vss. 1-4). But by the time the psalm reaches verses 10-12, we can see that his point is that we need to ascend to praising God even in the most challenging times. It is then that we reach a new dimension of worship.

While God’s specific name, “Yahweh,” is not mentioned, the invitation to “Sing the glory of His name” focuses our attention on the uniqueness of God as the Israelites (and later, Christians) understand Him, and this coming from a history of significant trials and difficulties. Unlike pagan so-called gods, our God is “awesome.” What humanly invented deity out there has followers who can say that? He is always awesome (in the sense of awe-inspiring) in everything He does. Even our most difficult experiences, when seen through faith, show God to be amazingly unique and worthy of our praise. That is what this psalm is all about.

Praise, though, does not occur in a vacuum. It is not a vague feeling of euphoria; it does not grow on a padded pew in a monastery. The key to growing in praise is not found in the solitude of contemplation, practicing chants, novenas, or ritualistic prayers, but in the rugged trenches of life. The angels may rejoice in God in the pristine, perfect environment of heaven before His throne (see, for example, Isaiah 6), and there will come a time when we will worship before His throne as well. But now is our time to grow as humans, as God’s image-bearers; we must learn to praise God’s awesomeness, not just in the good times but also in the rough ones in this fallen world. By faith, we know that in the end, we, along with all the earth will worship Him and join in singing His praises (vs. 3-4). Fully embracing this doesn’t come easy.

So, concerning our current difficulties, the psalmist reminds us that God has already worked awesomely in our lives. For the Jews, they need to remember their defining salvation (as a people group) from Egyptian slavery (vss. 5-7). Two events should be like mental and spiritual stakes in the ground: 1) God’s rescue from the Egyptian army through the miraculous dividing of the Red Sea and 2) leading the Israelites into the promised land by dividing the Jordan River (vs. 6). In both events, they found themselves up against a watery wall, but God miraculously led them through.

As believers, our most incredible rescue event occurred on the cross when God saved us from the consequences of sin and the judgment we deserved. But God’s rescuing us is not a one-time event; God continues to rescue us throughout our lives. We constantly need His intervention to do awesome work. This is what we call sanctification, where God molds us more and more into Christlikeness. Left to our own devices, we would grow spiritually dull, complacent, or backslidden. But God has greatly invested in us, as the apostle Paul writes:

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Rom. 5:9–10)

Salvation is not something separate from His continued work of salvation, for God continually preserves us from future consequences. Put another way, we will be saved because God keeps us saved. And to do this, He uses hard things in life to form Christ in us (Gal. 4:19). So, in this psalm, God has refined Israel through their difficult times:

Bless our God, O peoples, and sound His praise abroad, who keeps us in life and does not allow our feet to slip. For You have tried us, O God; You have refined us as silver is refined. (Ps. 66:8–10)

God wouldn’t let them wholly slip into complete spiritual failure (which we read elsewhere would be abandoning God for worshipping pagan idols). Contrary to non-believers’ perspectives, their trials showed God working awesomely to rescue them from spiritual failure. Those trials are delineated in graphic terms (vss. 10-12); they …

• Went through extreme testing of their loyalty to God, like refining of fire (compare 1 Peter 1:6-9).
• Were surrounded by enemies on all sides, like being caught in a hunting snare or net.
• Were oppressed by captivity and slavery.

In all these things, faith is the narrative that frames our dire circumstances as God working in our lives. By faith, then, we can take our praise to the next level when we can say, “You brought us out into a place of abundance” (vs. 12b). The trial of the Exodus resulted in their entering the Promised Land, which was described metaphorically as a land of milk and honey. However, the promise of abundance would carry them through their later Babylonian captivity. It has kept hope for the remnant of faith that things will be abundantly better when the Messiah comes. This is the same hope we Christians have when we believe against all outward circumstances that God will lead us into a more abundant life; trials and difficulties cannot prevent God’s blessings.

The psalm writer now turns to his testimony (vss. 13-20); these truths are not just for the community of believers but for each of us individually. We cannot ride the caboose on the train of other people’s faith; we must trust God for ourselves, that He is in control and His purpose is to use trials to refine us. In the Jewish setting, the best response to God’s rescuing the individual was to offer sacrifices to Him. But God’s salvation demands that we not keep this blessing to ourselves, that we tell others—not so much about how great our life is now that God has helped us, but about how great God is. That is what praise is all about. Indeed, we are thankful to God for our blessings, and we honor Him when we acknowledge and enjoy our blessings. But praise focuses on God, the one who blesses.

So, in verse 16, like the psalmist, we invite others to hear what God has done (vs. 16). The platform for God’s glory is what He has done in us, to be sure, but the prime focus is on what God has done. As for us, when we acknowledge God with a clean heart, we can be assured that He will hear us (vs. 18). But we must turn the blessing we receive back to the praise of God. That is why with the ending of the psalm, we can praise Him:

“Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer nor His lovingkindness from me” (vs. 20).