I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (Psalm 96) Series

Good morning! Please open your Bibles to Psalm 96.

I was five years old when Coca Cola came out with one of the most iconic commercials of all time. It was 1971. The idealism of the hippie movement was still hanging in there, but the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy in 1968, the escalation of the war in Vietnam, racial unrest, and the growing generational divide had fractured America.

That was when Coke came out with their “I’d like to teach the world to sing” commercial. It showed people from all over the globe—different races, languages, and cultures—standing on a hillside singing together.

I'd like to buy the world a home,

and furnish it with love.

Grow apple trees and honey bees,

and snow-white turtle doves.

I'd like to teach the world to sing,

in perfect harmony…

Setting aside the fact that you don’t “grow” bees and birds, it’s a beautiful dream, isn’t it? A world in harmony. A global chorus, voices from every nation singing the same song.

The message was simple: unity, peace, harmony. And all we needed to achieve this utopia was to give the world a taste of “The Real Thing”— Coca Cola.

Believe it or not, Psalm 96 has a lot in common with that Coke commercial. It also imagines us teaching the world a song. It also imagines all the nations of the world singing together in perfect harmony. And like the Coke commercial, Psalm 96 points us to “the real thing.”

The difference is, in the Coke commercial, “the real thing” turns out to be fizzy sugar water. The Coke commercial struck a chord because it touched something true—we long for unity. We want a world where people sing the same song, not shout past each other. But Coca Cola couldn’t deliver that. It couldn’t then, and it can’t now.

But Psalm 96 offers a better vision. Not just a dream, but a declaration. Not a jingle with a product to sell, but a command with a purpose to fulfill.

So we are going to look at Psalm 96 this morning, and emphasize three things:

• We are a people called to sing.

• We have a God worth singing about

• The world needs to hear the song.

Let’s pray together, and then we will look at this Psalm.

[Pray]

This Psalm doesn’t list an author, but it’s likely either David or Asaph, because almost all the words of this Psalm are found in a song sung by David and Asaph when bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem in 1 Chronicles 16.. It was a huge celebration. Trumpets, harps, lyres were all cranked up to eleven. People were singing and dancing. This was when King David danced so hard he embarrassed his wife (see 2 Samuel 6:14-23). Husbands— how’s that for a challenge? Sing so loud and worship so enthusiastically that you embarrass your family members.

But it was on this occasion that either Asaph or David himself wrote Psalm 96. And in the first three verses, we see that God’s people are called to sing:

I. A People Called to Sing (vv. 1-3)

Psalm 96:1–3 ESV

1 Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! 2 Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

Throughout the Bible, there are more than 500 references to singing, and more than a hundred direct commands to sing. That means if you’re not singing, you’re disobeying. It’s not about vocal talent—it’s about joyful obedience.

Think about the book of Psalms. It’s three times longer than Mark’s gospel, four times longer than Revelation, and longer than all of Paul’s letters combined. It has more chapters than all four gospels put together. That’s not filler. That’s formation. God is shaping His people into a singing people.

You see the command to sing three times just in the first two verses of Psalm 96. Notice it says “sing to the Lord a new song. This is a command repeated 9 times in Scripture: six in the Psalms, once in Isaiah, twice in Revelation. So from the shepherd’s field to the throne room in Heaven, God keeps calling his people to respond with fresh praise.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t sing old songs. I love the old hymns. And I’ll admit, as a Gen X’er, I still think there hasn’t been any real rock and roll since around 2000. But here’s the thing: one measure of a church’s health is whether it’s still writing new songs. That’s because the mercy of God is not a museum piece—it’s living and active, renewed every morning.

Think about this: when was the last time anyone wrote a song about the Roman Empire? Why not? Because the Roman Empire is gone! Nobody is writing songs about how the steam engine changed their life. But new songs are being written about God because God’s mercies are made new every morning.