Psalm 33 Sermon

Introduction

Good morning, Echo Church! If I have not met you yet, my name is Jackson. I am a member here at Echo Church.

It is a joy this morning that I will be preaching to you from Psalm 33. This amazing Psalm can be encapsulated in it’s command - Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

We are here this morning to worship our God and what more fitting message than to talk about why and how we should praise Him?

It is a long psalm, but I want to read for us the entire psalm before we get started this morning. Let me read it for us now.

English Standard Version Psalm 33

Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous!

Praise befits the upright.

2  Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre;

make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!

3  Sing to him a new song;

play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4  For the word of the LORD is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

5  He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

6  By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

7  He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;

he puts the deeps in storehouses.

8  Let all the earth fear the LORD;

let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!

9  For he spoke, and it came to be;

he commanded, and it stood firm.

10  The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

11  The counsel of the LORD stands forever,

the plans of his heart to all generations.

12  Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,

the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

13  The LORD looks down from heaven;

he sees all the children of man;

14  from where he sits enthroned he looks out

on all the inhabitants of the earth,

15  he who fashions the hearts of them all

and observes all their deeds.

16  The king is not saved by his great army;

a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

17  The war horse is a false hope for salvation,

and by its great might it cannot rescue.

18  Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,

on those who hope in his steadfast love,

19  that he may deliver their soul from death

and keep them alive in famine.

20  Our soul waits for the LORD;

he is our help and our shield.

21  For our heart is glad in him,

because we trust in his holy name.

22  Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,

even as we hope in you.

Let’s pray.

Christians do this funny thing. We point it out sometimes when we host - and it’s that we as relatively normal functioning adults get together every single Sunday, pack ourselves into a room, and start singing to someone that we can’t see.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Non-Christians do similar things. They go to concerts. They go karaoke. Non-Christians sing at Buddhist temples and other religious venues.

But Christians really care about their singing together. When you go to a concert the music is so loud you can hardly hear yourself. When you go the the Buddhist temple, it’s chants and singing that the monks do and you join along.

But for Christians, we care about each other’s singing. I am a terrible singer. I can’t hold a tune for the life of me. But I sing every Sunday for a reason. And it’s right here, in this text.

But guys, worship wars is a thing in Christianity! It’s sad but we can make a reality show about many of the turf wars that happen over music and how we sing together as a church.

And while that’s sinful, it stems from something. It stems from the fact that singing is worship and praise - and it has deep theological reasons. It is an outflow of who God is and what He has done.

Let me give you a flyover view of what we’re going to talk about today. This passage starts with the command to praise God, and then moves into the reasons for praising Him.

What I am going to do is reverse that order. I am going to give us the reasons why we are to praise God and flow back to the command of doing so.

Let me give us our main point this morning:

Main Point: Praise the Lord because of his creative power and providential care

We’ll see from our text this morning two main reasons why the Lord is worthy of our praise.

The first is his creative power, which the Psalmist uses the imagery of speaking to display this. In God’s Word, we find his creative power in full display.

The second imagery our Psalmist uses is God’s sight. It is through God’s seeing that He displays his providential care for His children.

Let’s start with the first point.

Point 1: Praise the Lord for His power

Look with me at verses 4 through 7. The Psalmist states:

English Standard Version Psalm 33

For the word of the LORD is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

5  He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

6  By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

7  He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;

he puts the deeps in storehouses.

Verse 4 starts with the word for, which acts as the ground for the call to praise the Lord.

Yahweh’s love for all

His creative power

Fear Yahweh

Point 2: Praise the Lord for His care

Psalms, Volumes 1 & 2 33:13–19, For His Justice and Mercy

At just this point the psalmist provides comfort. The comfort comes in a return to the idea of the Lord’s lovingkindness introduced in 33:4–5, where it fills the earth. Now in the corresponding statements in 33:18–19 the psalmist says that the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, who wait for his lovingkindness, to deliver their soul from death. He not only saves them, he provides for them against the outworking of the curse. The land was cursed because of Adam’s sin (Gen 3:17–19), resulting in famines across the book of Genesis down to this day. Yahweh keeps alive those who fear him in the famine, however, which is a poetic way of saying that God’s judging curse does not fall on those who fear him and hope in his lovingkindness.

What does it mean to fear the Lord? Here it means that we realize that we are guilty before him and dread his punishment. What does it mean to hope in his lovingkindness? Here it entails acknowledging our sin before him and placing our hope in his character—and he has declared himself to be one who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin (Exod 34:6–7). How can God forgive and uphold justice? The Lord is just. He cannot be characterized the way Moliere mocked the governing powers of France when he said, “Here [in Paris] they hang a man first, and try him afterwards.” God has justice on his side, and he will uphold it. But how can he uphold justice and forgive sinners? By putting Christ forward as a sacrifice of propitiation (Rom 3:24–26).

He is watching (so fear Him)

He created hearts and cannot be defeated

Yahweh’s love for those who fear Him

Psalm 32 ends with these verses, “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”

And we have the start to our Psalm this morning repeating that same sentiment, “Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.”

So in one sense, our Psalm in grounded in the idea that because those who trust in the Lord receive his steadfast love that we are called to rejoice. Look at verse 22 of our Psalm this morning. Our Psalm ends, “Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.” This song of praise is bookended with the very idea that in our trust and hope in the Lord, He surrounds and bestows upon us His steadfast love!

But what does HIs steadfast love mean? The word for it is almost impossible to translate. It has the idea of joint obligation, faithfulness, mercy, love, goodness, graciousness, and more. It is as if the very goodness of God is lavished upon the one who trusts and hopes in God.

Point 3: Praise the Lord for His Steadfast Love

The Book of Psalms (Psalm 33: The Hesed of the Lord Fills the Earth)

in the Psalter at least, before they are moral terms they are relational terms—the righteous and upright are, first and foremost, those who rely on God. The righteous are those who are so aware of their own frailty, finitude, and fallibleness, that they are driven into the arms of mercy, to be totally reliant on a relationship with the Lord. As Creach has persuasively shown, “the righteous are distinguished from the wicked mainly by their confession of helplessness … and therefore they ‘seek refuge’ in the Lord.”

Wait and hope in Yahweh

Conclusion