Psalm 33: A Better Song for Your Week

Introduction

"Psalm 33 is in our Bibles to help us sing." Ben, a pastor in training at Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh, is not only thinking about a half-sunny Sunday. He is thinking about Monday, and everything that will come from Tuesday to Saturday. He is convinced of it: God wants his Church to be a people who sing.

Before opening the psalm, the church read Revelation 7: a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. The preacher asks us to keep that picture in mind, because tomorrow's song changes the way we sing today.

The psalm gives two reasons to sing once you have put your trust in God for the forgiveness of your sins: his word and his purposes prevail, and he alone is strong enough to save. It ends with a song to take up together all week long.

Message Outline

1. An Order from God: Sing

Verses 1 to 3 are hard to miss: rejoice, give thanks, sing a new song, play skillfully with a shout of joy. "Praise is fitting for the upright": it is what suits the people of God.
The preacher asks the question: how do you receive this? Maybe you are "not really a singer" ("you and me both," he says). Maybe your life is very hard right now. Maybe you are just discovering Christianity and find it strange that 600 people gather on a Sunday morning to sing.
Or maybe you are a stern Scot, with the voice and "the emotional range of a fridge." Either way, the command makes you a little uncomfortable.
Whether you arrive distracted, anxious or full of doubts, God wants you to be among those who sing. Not only hymns sung out of duty on Sunday, but a life that says, from Monday to Saturday: "No, I trust in him, I put my hope in the Lord."

2. A Song for the Battle, Against the World's Songs

Psalm 33 is a song for the battle. The preacher reads it as the mirror of Psalm 32, where you feel your bones wasting away. Verse 20 speaks of help and a shield: a song for when everything in you wants to shrink back.
As soon as we walk out through the glass doors of the church, the world sings us another song, one that does not praise God. The psalm brings two of them to light, in verses 10 and 16: "my plans will succeed" and "my strength can save me."
When your back is against the wall, they will tell you: trust yourself, put your hope in yourself. "These are siren songs. They sound nice, but they bring you no hope," and they want your faith dashed upon the rocks.
"We have a better song to sing," and learning to sing it can take us from distress and doubt to joy in a mighty God.

3. God's Word Is Right and True

Verse 4: "For Yahweh’s word is right. All his work is done in faithfulness." The world says: plot your own way, figure it out yourself. We, for our part, have received the truth.
Living without God is like putting together IKEA furniture without the instructions: all you get is frustration and a flimsy structure. In the Bible, we have the designer's instructions, freed from the burden of working everything out by ourselves.
God loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of his goodness (verse 5). If he were only justice, we would be crushed under the weight of our sin. If he were only love without justice, we would have a pleasant God who could not save.
He is both. Jesus Christ, the living Word, the way, the truth and the life, came into the mess of your sin and died on the cross to satisfy God's justice in your place, so that he could take you by the hand and lead you on the path of righteousness.
To sing this song this week is to choose, in the face of the familiar temptation that no one else will notice, to say: "The word of the Lord is right and true, and I hold on to it. I hold on to Christ."

4. When God Speaks, His Word Creates

Verses 6 to 9: "By Yahweh’s word, the heavens were made: all their army by the breath of his mouth. […] For he spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood firm." With God, word and work are inseparable.
Have you ever looked at the stars on a calm night, too many to count? Or gazed at the sea from the shore? The Lord spoke, and they came to be.
The preacher sees a danger in a church like his own: saying "we are a people of the Word" while meaning only that someone will preach the Bible on Sunday, when it changes very little from Monday to Saturday.
He confides: for four years he has gone almost every day to the same café in the neighbourhood and has spoken the name of Jesus only three times. When the barista, who now knows his first name, asks him what he does, everything in him wants to shrink back. He sees in this a lack of trust in the power of the Word, and asks the church to pray for him.
That word which launches the stars into space can also make us ready to speak about Jesus at the café, at the school gate or at work.

5. God's Purposes Stand Forever

Verses 10 and 11: "Yahweh brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. […] The counsel of Yahweh stands fast forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations." On the scales, there is only one winner.
If you have put your trust in him, his purposes were to save you and to look after you until the day you see him with joy that never ends.
Nothing could stop his word from entering your life by the power of the Spirit. Neither your sin, nor Satan, nor the plots of men could stop Christ from winning your forgiveness by his death, and death itself could not stop him from coming out of the tomb victorious.
"I don't know what awaits you this week," says the preacher, but you can entrust it to the Lord: a diagnosis, a difficult relationship, or simply the treadmill of life. The one who chose you, loved you and redeemed you will walk beside you at every step.

6. God Is Strong Enough to Save

Verse 12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance." If you trust in Christ, whatever state you are in this morning, you are blessed: the King of glory has chosen you to be his eternal inheritance.
"Praise is fitting for the upright" does not mean: clean yourself up, then sing. God has made you upright in Jesus Christ. It is not a feeling, it is your standing before him. That is why you can sing.
God looks down from heaven (verses 13 to 15). The preacher does not read it as an angry father ready to wag his finger, but as the one who rules over all and who still sees you: "I know what you are going through. I am with you."
Yet we often leave church like "salvation-seeking machines": the next step in our career, a relationship, one more zero in the bank account. These may be good things, but they are not things that save.
Verses 16 and 17: it is not a great army that saves the king, nor great strength that delivers the warrior, and the horse is powerless to provide salvation. Before the throne, as in Revelation 7, no one will say "my career saved me" or "my plans succeeded." We will sing with one voice: "Praise the Lord who saved me, who carried my sin to the cross."
To the person discovering Christianity, the preacher asks the question of the psalm: what are you putting your hope in? If it is not God, it will not last. He invites them to stop trusting in themselves, to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and to come and talk with him after the service.

7. The Anthem of God's People

Verses 20 to 22: "Our soul has waited for Yahweh. He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let your loving kindness be on us, Yahweh, since we have hoped in you." This is the score to sing this week.
These verses are like the national anthem of God's people, and a national anthem is not sung alone, but arm in arm. The psalm also moves from the third person to "we": a shared identity leads to a shared song.
This song takes the shape of a brother who asks how you are really doing and brings you back to Christ, of a sister who says "I don't have the answer, but let's open the Word together," of a member who sends a little message: "I'm praying for you."
When everything seems hopeless, helpless, joyless or far from love, we say: we hope in the Lord, he is our shield, the Holy One is near, his goodness does not let go of us.
At a Scottish football match, thousands of the grumpiest men you could ever meet cannot help singing, shoulder to shoulder. "And football can't even save." We sing the song of salvation.
"Let this song be the song of the week": as you go through the glass doors, do not shrink back, do not hide, do not sing the world's song, but say verse 20 again.

Key Takeaways

God wants a people who sing, not only on Sunday, but through a life that puts its hope in him from Monday to Saturday.
The world sings "my plans will succeed" and "my strength can save me." These are siren songs with no hope.
God's word is right, true and creative: it made the stars and it alone brings people from death to life.
God's purposes stand forever: nothing could stop his plan to save you, and nothing will stop him from keeping you.
God alone is strong enough to save, and his people sing together the anthem of verses 20 to 22.

Personal Application

What state are you in as you come before God this week: distracted, anxious, full of doubts? What would change if you chose to sing anyway?
Which of the world's two songs, "my plans will succeed" or "my strength can save me," rings loudest in you right now?
In what specific situation do you need to say: "What I want is not necessarily right, the word of the Lord is right and true"?
Where do you tend to stay silent about Jesus (at the café, at school, at work)? Who can you pray for, so as to have more confidence in the power of the Word?
Which brother or sister can you help this week to sing verse 20, through a question, an open Bible or a simple message?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Psalm 33 command us to sing?

The psalm says that praise is fitting for the upright: it is what suits the people of God. The preacher explains that it is not only about singing on Sunday, but about living, from Monday to Saturday, a life that sings God's praise, even when you are not a singer or when life is hard.

What are the two songs of the world that Psalm 33 speaks of?

The preacher spots them in verses 10 and 16: "my plans will succeed" and "my strength can save me." These are siren songs that sound nice but bring no hope. The psalm sets against them the purposes of the Lord, which stand forever, and the God who alone saves.

What does it mean to sing Psalm 33 during the week?

Verses 20 to 22 are like the national anthem of God's people, and an anthem is sung together. To sing it is to say, in the face of a diagnosis, a difficult relationship or the daily routine: "Our soul has waited for Yahweh." It is also a brother who brings you back to Christ, a sister who opens the Bible with you, a message that says "I'm praying for you."