Psalm 33
All right, let’s give our attention
to God’s holy word and give reverence to his name and all that it reveals
about him. This is Psalm 33, beginning at
verse one. Shout for joy in the Lord, O
you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give
thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Make melody to him with the heart
of 10 strings. Sing to him a new song, play
skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. For the word of
the Lord is upright and all his work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast
love of the Lord. By the word of the Lord, the
heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth, all their
host. He gathers the waters of the
sea as a heap. He puts the deeps in the storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord,
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For
he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates
the plans of the people. The counsel of the Lord stands
forever. The plans of his heart to all
generations. Blessed is the nation whose God
is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. The Lord looks down from heaven.
He sees all the children of man from where he sits enthroned.
He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He who fashioned
the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is
not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by
his great strength. The war horse is a false hope
for salvation. And by its great might, it cannot
rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is
on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive
in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord.
He is our help and our shield, for our heart is glad in him
because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love,
O Lord, be upon us even as we hope in you. May God bless that
reading of his holy word even our study this night. This is
a psalm that begins in praise and it ends in very simple childlike
trust. And if you have a stack of books
at your house or a row of books, you might have bookends. And
the bookends hold that stack up, but they also in literary
terms, show us that what is in between is important. And so
if the bookends of this psalm are praise and trust, what’s
in between the bookends of praise and trust are gonna be important
for why we should praise and trust God. So that’s what the
bulk of this psalm is gonna be about. The bulk of the psalm
is gonna be basically verses four through 19. The bookends
will be praise and trust, The bulk of the bookshelf, so to
speak, will be why should we praise and why should we trust
in God? Now, if I were to say to you
that we should praise and trust God, many of you could say, yeah,
that’s right and nod your heads and we could move on. But the
Psalms tell us lots of reasons we should praise and trust God.
And so Psalm 33 is just one of those. There could be a thousand
reasons we should praise and trust God. But tonight we wanna
look at why should we praise and trust God from Psalm 33. And so let’s look at the first
bookend, and that is in verses one through three. It’s a call
to worship. And he uses in this six worship words. You can probably
pick them out. He says, shout for joy in the
Lord, O you his righteous. Praise, it’s word number two,
befits the upright. Number three is give thanks to
the Lord with the liar. A fourth word is make melody
to him with harps of ten strings. and then fifth, sing to him a
new song, and sixth, and finally, play skillfully on the strings
with loud shouts. And so there’s six imperatives
here, six imperative verbs that tell us how we should respond
to God in praise. There’s lots of different words
for worship in the Bible. Here we get six of them. We should
praise God, it’s fitting, and it’s right. Let me just mention
before we, dig completely into this little call to worship.
Psalm 33 connects back to Psalm 32. Remember last week in Psalm
32, David had sinned, he had coveted, he committed adultery,
he murdered, he lied, he covered it up, he did all kinds of bad,
terrible things. And by the end of Psalm 32, he’s
saying to Israel, you’ve got to praise the Lord. And so Psalm
33 is saying, you’ve got to praise the Lord, and it connects in
that sort of way. Now, David probably did not write
Psalm 33, but at least in the Psalter, they’re well-connected.
And you’ll find some of the same worship words in Psalm 32 that
you find in Psalm 33. But what about these six imperatives?
There’s a call to worship here in verses one to three, six imperatives.
Shout joyfully, praise the Lord, make a noise, make music, sing,
play, shout, all these words It reminded me of a hymn we sometimes
sing at Thanksgiving, and I think we sang it last month after we
had the Lord’s Supper. Now thank we all our God. Do
you know how it goes next? With heart and hand and voices. And this is a song that says
not only should we praise God with all that we have, you know,
the idea of let everything that has breath praise the Lord. This
also seems to say that we should musically praise the Lord. And
so what’s better in a, What could be better than to be in a worship
service where the music is strong, but the voices are lifting the
roof off the building? We say over and over around here
that saved people sing. And so on Sunday, our voices
and our instruments should literally blow the roof off of this place. Now our deacons may not like
that idea, but God would. But we should, as this Psalm
tells us in verses one to three, give it all we got, pull out
all the stops, and praise God with both voice and instruments. Now, it says in verse three,
sing to him a new song. Now, you might read into that
and say, well, we ought to quit singing all these stodgy old hymns, anything
from, you know, 19 whatever, before we ought to put that away.
Well, what does he mean about singing new songs? It simply
is this, we ought to be ready to worship God over and over
and over for all that we have, all that he has given us. We
ought to have a voice that’s ready to praise him anew. Now, I know we all get inspired
by different things. You know, Apple’s coming out
with a new product or it’s Christmas time or a new car that we’re
fond of is putting out a new model. I mean, on and on the
list can go. But how often do we get excited
about the new mercies of God, the new blessings of God, the
new ways where he manifests himself to us? And it’s just a good reminder
that the church should worship God with all that she has, both
in voice and in instrument. Now let’s get to the meat of
this psalm, the thick part, and we’ll come to the other bookend
at the end. Verses four through 19 speak of why we should praise
God. Now we get to verses 20 through
22, it’ll tell us why we should trust in him. And the reasons
are the same. Why should we praise God? Well,
verses four through 19 will tell us. And then at the end, why
should we have confidence and trust in God? Well, verses four
through 19 will give us the answer to that. But notice how verse
four starts. It’s told us six imperative verbs,
and one, two, three, we should worship God, sing, praise, all
that. Why? Well, notice how verse four says,
for, or the reason why, the word of the Lord is upright. All his
work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice,
and the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. By
the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. By the breath of his
mouth, all their host. He gathers the waters of the
sea as a heap, and he puts the deep. deeps into the storehouses. And this section, that’s verses
four through 19, gives us the reasons why, in verses one through
three, we should praise God, and verses 20 through 22, we
should have confidence and trust. And there’s three big reasons.
It’s because of God’s word, his works, and what he does in the
world. So you can think of those three
Ws, his word, his works, and the world. Notice there in verses
four and five, the word of the Lord is upright. It speaks of
the character of his holy word. The word of the Lord is right
and all his work is done in faithfulness. So his word, its character is
right and it’s true. Now incidentally, this evening,
our catechism was on not taking God’s name in vain. And it’s
not just that we don’t take his name in vain, we don’t profane
any way God makes himself known. His word, his works, His attributes,
what else did it say? His ordinances, his names, his
titles, any way by which God makes himself known. Well, how
does God make himself known? He makes himself known through
creation and through his holy word. So anything in creation
that manifests God’s glory, we should be careful not to take
in vain. Anything God lets us know about himself and his word,
we should be careful not to take it in vain. So God’s word is
right and true. And it also speaks of his works
or his actions. By the word of the Lord, verse
six says, the heavens were made by the breath of his mouth, all
their host. We speak of God making the world
and everything in it. How does our catechism put it?
The work of creation is God’s making the world. What is it? God’s making the
world. All things out of nothing in the space of six days and
all very good. We call this fiat, not the little
Italian car, but we call it God’s making something out of nothing.
That’s what fiat is. We can’t do that. We can’t make something
out of nothing. We have to take something and
make it into something else. But God simply speaks, let there
be light. Let there be waters, let there
be seas, let there be birds, fish, whatever. He speaks and
it comes into being. He makes the world and everything
in it. So we read of God’s word, it’s
right and true. We hear of his works and we see
that in his works, they’re faithful, they’re righteous, they’re full
of justice, and they’re full of steadfast love. And regarding
the world, Not only the fact that God made it, but what else
does God do with the world that he made? He takes care of it.
The catechism says on providence, God’s works of providence are
his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all
his creatures and all their actions. And that is a great offense to
a postmodern mind, a person who says, I’m fine without God, I
don’t need him. or even to the self-sufficient
Christian who does not realize all that God is and all that
God does. God’s works of providence, his most holy, wise, and powerful,
preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.
Some people think that means we’re robots or that we’re little
puppets on strings and God does everything he wants and we just
follow right along. No, but God is at work in the world. And
he’s at work in our lives. Yes, we obey him. Yes, we follow
his commands. Yes, we still sin. But God is
at work in all those primary and secondary causes. And we
don’t have to fear that the world is on a course and that it’s
out of control and that we are subject to the fates. No, we
are under the providence and almighty watch of God. And you’ll
notice that it says a handful of things about God’s Providence
It says he watches over us. He protects us and he preserves
us Pick up there at verse 80 says let all the earth fear the
Lord Let all the inhabitants stand in all of him for he spoke
it came to be he commanded it stood firm The Lord brings the
counsel of the nations to nothing He frustrates the plans of the
peoples the counsel of the Lord stands forever the plans of his
heart to all generations So God is not only the creator, but
he’s the We could put it in kids’ terms. He’s the taker care of
her. He’s the caretaker of all that he’s made. It goes on in
verse 11. The counsel of the Lord stands
forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. Blessed is
the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen
as his heritage. The Lord looks down from heaven.
This is a comforting little statement here. The Lord looks down from
heaven. He sees all the children of man. From where he sits enthroned,
he looks out. on all the inhabitants of the
earth. Maybe you’ve flown in an airplane and you’ve looked
out the window and you’ve seen little cars going on the freeway and
people going about their business. You know, you’ve seen maybe the
airport area and God looks and he sees the whole world and everything
in it and how he sees on that sphere of the earth. You couldn’t
do it, but he sure can. He knows everything, moment by
moment, everywhere. It says, he who fashions the
heart, verse 15, the hearts of them all, he observes all their
deeds. The king is not saved by his great army. A warrior
is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a
false hope for salvation. By its might, it cannot rescue.
The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope
in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine. So God’s, why should we praise
God? Why should we trust him? Well,
it’s because of his word he creates. It’s because of his works. He’s
faithful over all his creation. And it’s because the world we
live in is where God is at work. And so we have lots of reasons
to praise him. But that leads also to the final little section,
verses 20 to 22. Not only should we worship God,
like verses one to three tell us, but we should also have confidence
and trust in God. And for all the reasons listed
in verses four through 20, or 19, it says, our soul waits on
the Lord. He is our help and our shield.
Our heart is glad in him because we trust in his holy name. Let
your steadfast love, oh Lord, be upon us even as we hope in
you. So, who is it that we trust in? Sometimes you get your little
insurance policy in the mail for your car or your house and
it tells you all that boring stuff you never read, you just
stuff it in the drawer with last year’s. But it tells you what’s
covered, what your deductibles are and all that. Well, that’s
what the Bible is for us in a real way. It tells us who our God
is and what he is able to do for us. And the better we know
our God, the better we know His character, His actions, His promises,
His word, His work, and His world. The better we know that, the
better we can praise Him, but also the better we can trust
Him. And the psalmist tells us that we should have confidence.
As we wait on the Lord, trust the Father. It says our soul
waits for the Lord. He is our help. He is our shield.
Our heart is glad in Him because we can trust in His holy name.
You know, we speak often about being anxious or worried or waiting
for the next thing or waiting for the next moment or the next
decision or the next whatever phase in life. If only this will
happen, then this will get better, whatever. Well, we can wait and
wait and wait and wait. And this psalm is simply saying
to us, let your heart be glad in God. We trust in his holy
name. We can take a deep breath. We
can sit back a little bit because God, is at work even when we
can’t see things. And then he finally just gives
us a nice little statement there at the end. Let your steadfast
love, oh Lord, be upon us even as we hope in you. So all the
wonderful things that God in Christ has done are for our rest
and our assurance and our hope and trust. So why praise God?
Well, verses four to 19 will tell us. Why trust in God? because
verses 4 through 19 help us with that as well. So let’s pray and
ask for God to help us in this way. Lord, we thank you that
this psalm is for us, your people. It’s not just some ancient psalm
in an ancient book, but it’s your very word to us. And we
are reminded in it that you are the creator and sustainer of
all things. and that every moment of every day, day and night,
you are at work in the good world and the good creation that you’ve
made, blessing your people, you are orchestrating things, you
are working things out to all your holy ends. And so what better
place could we be in than to be in your gracious and mighty
arms and to be in your gracious and good and holy will? And we
pray, Father, that our minds and hearts would think on these
things and it would bring us to a place of praise and trust
and that we would rest as children who have a Heavenly Father who
delights in us and who will serve us in a very special and gracious
way. We ask it in His name. Amen.