Psalm 33:1-3

Called to worship with music

The Psalms are full of music that calls us to worship the Lord with praise and thanksgiving. In this passage we find the psalmist so enthralled with the perfect and infinite worth of God that he calls us to produce music that is rich and excellent. Though its excellence will be a pale, creaturely imitation of God's excellence, he wants us to throw our all into the effort.

Sing for joy in the Lord, you righteous ones;
Praise is becoming to the upright.
Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.

Praise beautifies people who have moral integrity and godly character. You may know a Christian who avoids lying and cheating yet still is a grumpy, sour person fixated on selfish concerns. True, such a Christian isn’t a paragon of godliness, but here is the crux of the difference: praise and gratitude flow from a heart that responds to God in worship. Knowing God and being aware of Him produces such worship. The thoughts of the grouch are far from God.

The passage also calls for a new song. Is that really necessary? Is it possible? God is a living God. His mercies are new every morning. He is never stale and will never grow boring. We will still be delighted by His richness, depth, and wonder a billion years from now. So a new song is always possible and always appropriate. He has done something for us today worthy of thanks.

The passage calls for skillful playing. Skill requires practice and work, whether a lyre, a harp of ten strings, or some modern instrument. It takes time and commitment.

Here we run into a problem. Temptation can quietly move our attention away from the Lord we worship to ourselves and the work we are doing to prepare and perform. In this way we can begin to worship our work instead of our God.

There are quiet ways to fail in which we look at our singing or playing as a favor we are doing for God — or in which our performance is a tax we are paying to earn the approval a stern teacher.

Jesus repairs these problems with His comments to the woman at the well in Sychar: worship must be true and it must come from the heart (“in spirit” John 4:24).

True worship that pleases God arises from a heart that is cognizant of the immense majesty and worth of the One it is praising. Even the work of preparation is moved by an awareness of the One who created music for us and us for Himself.

There is humility to know that we are not the center of the picture, humility which wells up within us who are recipients of God’s grace. We know that we have nothing to offer Him that we haven’t first received from Him, so we aren’t impressed with ourselves but Him.

Though the excellence of our performance will be a pale, creaturely imitation of God's excellence, the psalmist wants us to fill our souls with wonder of the Almighty and throw whole hearts into the effort.

Pursuit of wisdom for today from the Ancient of Days

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