Why We Shout For Joy, In Praise To Our God (Psalm 33:1-22) Series

This has been a difficult year for many of you. I've never talked to more sad farmers, than I have this year. What I'd like to do this morning, is encourage you by lifting your eyes toward the heavens, toward our Father in heaven. In our psalm this morning, I'll talk a little about worship--about how we should worship, and why we should worship. But my focus, and your focus, I hope, will be on God.

(1) Shout with joy, righteous ones, in Yahweh,

for the upright, praise is fitting.

Our psalm opens with a call to worship. There are a lot of things in life that can make us shout with joy. That make us rejoice. But as God's people-- as his righteous ones, the ones who live rightly with Yahweh--you should rejoice in Yahweh.

This is fitting; this is suitable. Yahweh has done so much for you; your only response can be to praise him.

Verses 2-3:

(2) Praise Yahweh with the guitar/lyre,

with the harp of ten strings sing/play to him.

(3) Sing to him a new song,

skillfully play with jubilation,

How should we praise Yahweh? Verses 2-3 tell us. First, Yahweh wants to be praised with instruments. Many of you are really good singers, but you aren't so amazing, that God doesn't want instruments to join in. Yahweh enjoys instruments. He enjoys guitars. He enjoys a ten-stringed harp-- whatever that is.

In verse 2, it's not clear whether the ten-stringed harp is viewed as praising God, all by itself, or whether the command here is to sing to Yahweh with the harp. Either way, know this: Yahweh enjoys instruments. Every time He sees something slide behind the piano or organ, or pick the guitar, He knows that He's about to enjoy what follows.

In verse 3, the psalmist commands you to sing new songs to Yahweh. As much as we like the old songs, Yahweh enjoys hearing something new. There's few things in life more exciting than when you hear some new song on the radio, and you turn it up, and you think, "Wow. This is a ridiculously good song. I'm going to play this song to death for months." But when we worship God, we tend to only sing the same songs we've sung to him for decades, or hundreds of years. Make God happy by singing a new song to him. Sing to him something new, that's ear candy. I'm not saying don't sing hymns. I'm saying, God enjoys hearing new songs.

In the next line, the psalmist commands you to play skillfully. When we come together on a Sunday morning, worship doesn't have to be flawless. People don't expect perfect transitions. Flawless harmonies. And some of us don't have great voices. We are supposed to praise anyway, and hope the talented musicians among us can cover for us. But all of that said... our worship should be done skillfully. When we are worshipping together, we are worshipping God. The musicians up front are not putting on a concert for us. They are praising their KING. And it makes sense, if God is our King, that we'd put the time in to make it sound good for him. So when musicians practice, and put in the time to fix things and work out the kinks, they do so not for us-- but for God. They want to sound good for Him.

In the last line of verse 3, we are told to sing with jubilation. Or, you could translate this, with shouts of joy.

This hour, is supposed to be the best hour of every week. This is the hour you get to praise God together as a congregation. You should be thrilled to praise God. You don't sing out of obligation. You don't sing quietly, and unemotionally. You sing with jubilation.

If you don't find your heart lifting when you worship, it's a sign that something is wrong with you spiritually. If you go through worship time distracted, or impatient, it's supposed to be a signal for you, that there's something about you that needs to be fixed. You don't value what God has done for you. You aren't thankful.

In verse 4, the psalmist moves from telling us how to worship, to why we worship. I'm going to pick this up at verse 2, and keep reading:

(2) Praise Yahweh with the guitar/lyre,

with the harp of ten strings sing/play to him.

(3) Sing to him a new song,

skillfully play with jubilation,

(4) because upright [is] the word/deed of Yahweh, ["upright" is focused]

and all his work/labor [is] with faithfulness,

Why do we praise God skillfully, with jubilation?

When Yahweh acts, he always acts uprightly. There is nothing crooked or deceptive about how he works. Every single thing that Yahweh does is trustworthy. His works are reliable. We can count on him, and on them. I've been studying Joshua lately, and Yahweh is always faithful to Joshua. He promises Joshua that he won't abandon him halfway through the conquest. He won't get tired of him, or move on to someone else. Yahweh can be trusted.