1 I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
2 I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
Psalm 9:1–2 (ESV)
Careful attention to the structure of the poetry in the Psalms demonstrates how powerful language can be to communicate ideas and sentiments. Here the structure plays an extremely important roll in how it presents the content. This entire Psalm is expressed in climactic parallelisms. David begins with his whole heart of thanksgiving in vs. 1. Which leads him to speak of all the wonderful deeds done by the Lord.
In verse 2, he builds on his testimonies of thanksgiving and can only express exuberance about the name of Lord, Most High! He is glad (pleased or delighted) and exults (to leap for joy) in God. He cannot remain silent but sings praise, that is, the parallelism ends with a musical crescendo: David admiring God’s name with singing.
Whole-hearted thankfulness leads to testifying of God’s wonderful deeds, which then leads to gladness, which then leads to a desire to leap for joy, which leads to full scale singing out to the Lord. The structure is not only carrying the content of the Psalmist, but it is also reflecting the direction of the man–and the culture.
The lack of whole-hearted thanksgiving never leads us to authentic praise. And if praise is a significant part of our worship, it’s no wonder the worship in our modern churches is often shallow. Worship that is a mile wide and an inch deep will not have its proper influence on the culture. We benefit to remember that in what is often called “the culture war,” worship is the believer’s warfare, not politics. Securing a culture that loves God (our mission as believers, Matthew 28:18-20) must begin with wholehearted thanksgiving to God, which leads to authentic praise, which is a significant part of our worship. When there is no thankfulness toward God in a culture, the devolution begins (see Romans 1:18-21ff).