Let me get you to open your copies of God’s Word, or the pew Bible in front of you if you choose, to Psalm 33. If you’re using the pew Bible, you’ll find that on page 463. This psalm is about worship. Well duh, aren’t they all about worship? Of course they are all about worship, but this really talks to us about worship, about we as God’s people, about the world at large telling us, reminding us, calling us to worship.
Now worship, let’s understand, worship happens really in all of life, doesn’t it? Paul said, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Paul is calling us to live a worshipful life, and so we do our work every day as unto the Lord. It’s an offering to the Lord. We do it for Him. We do it for His honor and for His pleasure. We receive our food with thanksgiving, recognizing it’s come from the Lord. And so there’s that moment of simple but heartfelt worship even as we begin our meal. We enjoy hobbies, we enjoy recreations, we enjoy avocations, things that refresh us, and we engage in them. And we engage in them with a sense of thankfulness – “God, this is a good gift from You to me. Thank You for this fishing hole. Thank You for this deer stand. Thank You for this opportunity to go watch my team lose – I’m sorry, win a ballgame, with my friends and loved ones, as the case may be!” It’s an avocation, it’s a recreation, and it recharges us and we give God thanks. We live in worship. Worship is everywhere. Worship is what we do all day long in one form or another.
The psalmist is right here, though, talking about the act of corporate worship – what we’re all here doing. As he’s talking to us, he’s calling the inhabitants of the world to worship as well. We’ll get more into that, but he’s thinking of a service, an opportunity to worship together. We’ll get into that more as we get into the psalm. We don’t know who wrote this psalm and we don’t know anything about the background, but it’s a call to worship. It’s a call to worship addressed to the righteous. We’ll talk about the righteous, addressed to all the inhabitants of the earth, in which we find the righteous responding. And then this psalm closes with the prayer of righteous worshipers.
Let me give you my outline and then we’ll pray and read the psalm. Worship and remember – that’s the first seven verses. That’s the psalmist’s call to the righteous. Worship and recognize – verses 8 to 17. That’s the psalmist’s call to the inhabitants of the earth. Worship’s reward – verses 18 and 19. Worship’s refrain – verses 20, 21. And then the worshiper’s request – verse 22. That sounds like a powerful long sermon. I promise you it’s not going to take that long. Right now let’s pray and let’s read the passage.
Father, we thank You for worship. We’re gathered here in worship. Speak to us now from Your Word about worship. Father, receive our worship. Receive our devoted attentions right now. Indeed, help us to lay aside every distraction and to train our heart’s eyes upon you, here in Your Word. Hear us. We make our prayer in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.
Psalm 33:
“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 harp of ten 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 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 peoples. 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 fashions 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.”
The grass withers, the flower fades, the Word of our God stands forever.
Worship and Remember
What’s the psalmist telling us? First of all, he’s talking to the righteous; verses 1 to 7 – worship and remember. It’s almost as though the psalmist walks right into the room in the middle of whatever in life we’re busy with, or maybe walks right into a service like this and he says, “Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright!” He says praise is your calling. Worship is your job description as a righteous one. It’s abrupt. It’s meant to redirect us, I think. Maybe it’s meant to wake us up a little bit. Sometimes we get a little bit sleepy and a little bit draggy in a worship service. We get our minds wandering over here and there and maybe it’s then that the psalmist walks in and he says, “Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones!” He says it’s what we’re made to do.
Who are the righteous ones? The righteous ones are the ones that God has called to be His. And now in the fullness of time, the ones who have responded to Christ in repentance and faith, the ones who have heard the Gospel and have responded to Christ in repentance and faith, the ones who recognized their need for a Savior and have found in Jesus of Nazareth the one God sent as Savior, as that very Savior, none other, God has made them righteous on the basis of that faith. Those are the righteous ones. If that describes you, you are His righteous one. If your trust is in Christ and in Christ alone to be made right with God, you are His righteous one and you are made to worship. God called you forth in new life in Christ to worship. And you know what? You are not going to finish worshiping. You are going to worship here, we’re going to learn worship here, we are going to learn more and more the longer we live about worship here so that when we step from here to eternity we’ll be ready to worship as we were made to worship. We’ll be ready to join that chorus of worship that has been eternity in the past and we’ll last for eternity in the future and we’ll step right into it. Here’s where we learn to worship.
That’s why the psalmist is saying, “Praise befits the upright.” He commands us to do it with music. He talks about a lyre. We’ve had beautiful harp music here tonight. He commands to worship with the harp, with singing, singing a new song; a song of praise to our God. With shouting – oh my! Oh my! Maybe there’s a Presbyterian side of heaven where they don’t have any shouting! I don’t know! We need to shout. We need to learn to shout. In fact, I’m not going to live with myself if we don’t do that right now. So I’m going to ask you to stand up. I’m going to ask you to stand up. If the psalmist is telling us to worship with shouts, we need a little practice! We know how to shout at ballgames, but we’re in church! We need some shouting practice. So I’m going to ask you, I’m going to count to three and we’re going to shout, “Hallelujah!” for joy in the Lord. Forget about being Presbyterian nervous here! We’re going to shout for joy in the Lord. One, two, three – “Hallelujah!” Oh that was very nice! You can sit down. And maybe I’ll have a chance to give you my forwarding address this week! It’s a celebration; it’s loud. That was loud – thank you! Maybe it would seem a bit rowdy because we’re singing and shouting together. It’s corporate. It’s together.
Why? Why worship? Specifically, that’s exactly what the psalmist speaks to in verses 4 and 5. He says, “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.” That’s an important two verses in this psalm and I want to take them apart phrase by phrase here just briefly. “For the word of the Lord,” he says, “is upright.” The Hebrew root of the word that we translate “upright” means “straight.” “The word of the Lord is straight.” It does not deviate from His character. It’s a straight reflection of who He is. The Word of the Lord tells us exactly who God is and how we might know Him. It leads us, the Word of the Lord leads us exactly to Him, not to the right or to the left; it leads us exactly to Him. It’s not but a stutter step from what he’s saying right there to what John says about the Word made flesh. John chapter 1 – listen to these first five verses:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
The Word of the Lord is upright. It’s in Jesus, the Word made flesh, that we know God plainly. We see His nature. We see the radiance of His glory. Then the psalmist says, “All his work is done in faithfulness.” W.S. Plumer says this. “As is His Word, so are His actions.” Everything God does is a perfect reflection of His character, just like everything He says is a perfect reflection of His character, it really is who He is. So it is with His works. They really do reflect who He is. There’s no duplicity. There’s no shadow of turning. Even Balam’s theology was on the mark right here. Listen to what Balam said, Numbers 23 verse 19. He’s talking to Balak, the king who is trying to bribe him to curse the Israelites. “God is not man that he should lie, or son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said and he will not do it? Or has he spoken and he will not fulfill it?” What God says, he does, and what he does is a perfect reflection of who he is.
Now we may have to wait, mightn’t we? We may have to wait. Abraham waited 25 years for God’s promised offspring to come. Twenty-five years Abram waited. God made a promise of offspring from his body. Twenty-five years. Not in silence – God visited, God kept that promise alive, but it was 25 years Abram waited for God to fulfill the promise He made. David, anointed as God’s king, and yet had to wait for his time. And waiting was not easy, because in much of that time he was living as a fugitive staying a step ahead of Saul’s army that was out to kill him. We wait. God is faithful and all His work is done in faithfulness, but we still wait for Him to finish and to fulfill His promise.
Another phrase that the psalmist here uses – “He loves righteousness and justice.” Righteousness and justice aren’t simply expedience for the Lord. He loves them. It’s not just that they seem to make things better. No, He loves righteousness. He loves justice. He delights in them and He creates, or rather recreates those qualities in us. They characterize the world as He made it. In fact, Adam was said by Paul to know God in terms of righteousness, true holiness, and you know what – I knew I should have looked that up; I forgot the third one. But righteousness and true knowledge of God – there it is. Righteousness, knowledge, and true holiness. God loves righteousness and righteousness is what we lost in the fall. Righteousness is what He restores to us in reuniting us with Himself. Through Christ, we become righteous. We have the righteousness of Christ. And then God begins to work righteousness into our character and we become, from the inside out, people like Christ, people who grow in righteousness. And righteousness becomes a thing that characterizes us. The new heaven and the new earth will be a righteous place because God delights in righteousness. He delights in justice. That’s who He’s making us to be. That’s who He’s making the church to be in the world. And as we grow as a church, as we grow in righteousness and justice, we shine the light of the glory of God in this place, in this place, as we pursue and grow in pursuing righteousness and justice. He makes the church a community of righteousness and justice because He loves them.
Finally in this two verse section, the psalmist says, “The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” The steadfast love of the Lord – that is, God’s covenant making and covenant keeping love. Jesus, in His work of redemption, is the ultimate picture of the steadfast love of the Lord. And that work required a steadfast love, didn’t it, considering the deep suffering that He underwent, considering that He made Himself nothing, considering that His Father would forsake Him in that moment that He became sin for us, covered in our sin. The love that motivated Him to take for Himself a people, a people fickle and untrue, wayward and forgetful, we see the evidence of God’s covenant keeping love all around us. It’s not just sprinkled here and there. The psalmist rightly says the earth is full of it. Listen to this from Psalm 104, these three verses:
“You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.”
Why is that? It’s because the steadfast love of the Lord fills the earth. Think about what God told Noah just after the flood. “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” Steadfast love overflows from the Father and fills everything you and I see around us.
Why worship? Verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 33 talk to us about creation. By the word of the Lord, everything that we see was made. Let me get back to Psalm 33 here. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” The psalmist is calling the righteous ones to pay attention to the created universe around us. By the word of the Lord they were made – the heavens, the stars, the moon, the sun, the waters of the sea, the great deeps all testify of His power and His might and His wisdom and sovereignty. The psalmist is calling the righteous ones, “Look around you! Look around you and recognize by the word of the Lord it all came into being, and worship! Let the created universe call your heart to worship and praise.”
Worship and Recognize
Well he turns his attention, verse 8, to all the inhabitants of the earth. He says, “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!” Everybody worships. Everybody worships. We were made to be worshipers. And one day, everybody will worship the Lord, either in joy and gladness or with grudging, angry hearts and gritting teeth, but all will worship the Lord. The psalmist is calling for worship, the worship of God from the nations. He calls them to pay attention to creation – the same thing He called upon the righteous to do. “Stand in awe of Him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” You know, that’s what Paul did in his sermon on Mars Hill recorded in Acts chapter 17. He argued for Yahweh based on the created universe that they could all see around them. That’s what he calls us, the righteous, to do. “By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made.” Be called to worship by God’s glory in creation.
All people see in history – we see it, everybody has seen it – in history at times the counsel of the nations comes to nothing and the plans of the people are frustrated. The psalmist tells us exactly how these things happen – the Lord does it. The Lord does it. That’s why the nations need to worship Him. His counsels always stand and the plans of His heart stand to all generations. It’s the nation that God has chosen that is truly blessed and the people who are His heritage, they are the ones who are blessed. These are the people who come to love God and who come to love His ways. As the Lord looks down from heaven, all people, all of us, fall under His eye. He knows our thoughts, He knows our desires, He knows our intentions. He fashioned our hearts. Some He made to call to Himself and some He made to pass by. He knows what they hope in. As the king and the warrior are foolish to hope in their armies and their weapons. There is no hope outside Yahweh. But these will hope in any but Yahweh. That’s why the psalmist is calling them to worship, to worship Yahweh. Forsake your empty hopes. Here is the one who has your hope. Here is the one who has your treasure. Here is the one who has your future. Forsake your empty dreams, your armies and your power. Here is the one who has all that you require.
Worship’s Reward
Well is there a reward to worship? The psalmist says there is. Verses 18 and 19 – “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.” The Lord is watching those who fear Him and He is watching them for their good. The Lord is watching for their good those that fear Him. We know Psalm 121. We’ve heard it. It’s a marvelous psalm that talks to us. The word “keeps” there is used about 6 different times. “The Lord keeps His righteous one.” “The Lord keeps those that fear Him.” “The Lord keeps those that love Him,” whatever else is happening. The Lord keeps them. He doesn’t sleep. His eye is always upon His righteous ones. Calvin says of the Lord’s watch and ward – I love that phrase – “The Lord’s watch and ward are over the safety of the faithful.” And so we keep ourselves quiet under His providence. We keep ourselves quiet under His providence.
Worship’s Refrain
There is a refrain to worship. Most refrains are repeated. We sing, in our worship hymns, we sing refrains that are repeated between the stanzas. I see what’s said in verses 20 and 21. As a refrain, though it’s not repeated throughout the psalm, it’s an effective response. Here toward the end of the psalm, we’ve got a response of the righteous ones. And I believe it functions in the same way as a refrain. “Our soul waits for the Lord.” Out of all that they’ve heard, the righteous ones speak. “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.” Note the plural pronouns. This is a corporate response. Is it spoken to all the inhabitants of the earth as a testimony? Are the righteous ones speaking to all the inhabitants of the earth about their hope, about their confidence in Yahweh, about their confidence in His being our help and our shield? Spurgeon says this. “This is the response of those who are quiet in expectation, patient in hope, and single in confidence.”
It reminds me of Psalm 131. It’s a very short psalm. Let me read this:
“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.”
That was one of the songs of ascent. The Israelites would sing that and the other songs of ascent as they were heading to Jerusalem to worship. One of the great national worship feasts. A weaned child. That’s what the psalmist is talking about. That’s what the response of the righteous ones is – a weaned child. Do you know what the difference is between a weaned child and the infant? The infant doesn’t know. The infant feels hungry or the infant feels uncomfortable. The infant feels ready to move or get out of the bed or whatever and doesn’t know that somebody is going to come help or somebody is going to come feed. He just screams. He just screams. And you know, you can’t tell an infant, “Don’t scream. I’m coming!” That’s not good. He’s just going to scream louder! “I hear you. I hear you. You’re there. Come now. Come now. Come quick. Come quick. I’m going to starve to death. Come quick!” The more they hear you, the louder they yell.
But it’s the weaned child who says to his mother, “I’m hungry,” and his mother says, “Wait a moment.” And the weaned child knows. The weaned child has confidence, “Mother is coming. Mother will feed me. Mother said she would. Mother knows that I’m hungry. I can wait and she will come.” Because the weaned child has learned from his experience, has learned from her experience that mother is faithful and mother will follow through; mother will take care. “I’ll get something to eat.” And that’s what David, in that Psalm 131, that song of ascents, is urging his people toward – trust the Lord as the weaned child trusts his mother. That’s what the righteous are saying here. “We’ve had enough experience with Yahweh; we know we can trust Him. We’ve had enough experience. He’s been so good. He’s been faithful. He’s been upright. He’s been true. Our heart is glad in Him. And if we wait, we’ll wait with confidence. We trust in His holy name. He’s been righteous and faithful and true the whole way through.” The hope of the righteous isn’t a grudging hope or a hope with gritting teeth or a hope with cynicism. It’s with gladness. It’s with gladness. Gladness in the One who has shown Himself to be utterly faithful and good. Gladness in belonging to Him and gladness in His belonging to us.
The Worshiper’s Request
Finally, one last thing. The worshipers make a request. Verse 22 – “Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.” We saw earlier, “The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” They’re saying, “Let it settle on us too.” Of all the requests that worshipers might make, this one shows us something about the nature of worship – it changes us. It changes us. Not maybe all at once, but its effect over time makes us interested, hungry for things greater than ourselves. Its effect over time draws us to Christ. It lifts up beyond our smallness and our childish thoughts to the very throne of God Himself. And we forget about the petty things we think will make for our peace and we find as Jesus said, “the one thing needful.” The one thing needful – the steadfast love of the Lord. That’s what happens to us as we worship – corporately, week after week, morning and evening. As we gather for worship we are drawn more and more closely to the very heart of God and we become hungry for Him; hungry for Him in ways we’ll never be otherwise. It’s worship, it’s worship that makes that happen in us. And so our one prayer becomes, “Lord, let Your steadfast love be upon me, be upon us. Nothing else will do. I have needs as long as my arm, a list as long as my arm, but nothing else will do. Let Your steadfast love be upon us.”
And so we worship, and by and by we find ourselves different people. Different people. And maybe that won’t be such a long step when we step from here to eternity. Maybe it will be shorter step than it might have been because God makes us different people as we praise Him. Let’s pray.
Father, thank You that worship is a dynamic event. We come into Your presence, You receive our praise, You bless us with Your nearness, You plant Your truth in our minds and our hearts, and Father, Your Spirit broods over it and You make us, in time, very different people. Work that process in us. Don’t stop. Don’t stop, our Father. Would the prayer of the righteous be our prayer? Of all the things we need and all the places we are broken and all the places we are hurt, would our prayer be that Your steadfast love would settle upon us, would rest upon us. Make us hungry. Make us hungry in that way. Father, that’s our prayer. Hear us. We make it in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.