Summary
Christmas approaches and we once again enjoy gifts, good food, and hopefully some nice weather. We also as believers rejoice in the birth of Jesus, God the Son incarnate, for us and for our salvation. Christmas reminds us that God is our help and shield, who is working in history to save his people. He is the one who we should praise and put our hope in.
Psalm 33 calls us to praise God, our help and shield. As we celebrate Christmas this year, Psalm 33 reminds us to praise God because of his Word, because his will comes to pass, and because God sees all things. Therefore we trust in God, who sent Jesus to help us from our sins in his first advent and who will return at his second to complete God’s salvation mission.
Our passage explained
v1-5
Psalm 33 begins with a call to praise God in verses one to three. Picking up from the final verse of Psalm 32, God’s people (the righteous and upright) are called to “shout for joy in the LORD” (v.1) with a variety of musical instruments (vv.2-3).
The first reason for offering praise to God is because of God’s Word. God’s word is “upright” (v.4) and reflects everything that makes God good. All God’s work expresses his goodness and faithfulness, his righteousness, justice, and his covenant love (vv.4-5).
v6-12
God’s word is the same word by which he made all things. By God’s word “the heavens were made” (v.6) and the chaotic uncontrollable seas which Canute could not tame were gathered “as a heap” and placed in storehouses (v.7). We ought to fear God, because his word is not only upright but powerful, making and upholding all things (vv.8-9).
The second reason to praise God is because God’s will comes to pass. Godless nations who seek their own will, not God’s, are frustrated in their plans (v.10). But God’s plans endure, “the plans of his heart to all generations” (v.11). God’s salvation plan throughout history cannot be frustrated or interrupted by sinners; what they intend for evil, God intends for good (Gen. 50:20).
“Blessed” then Psalm 33 says, “is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!” (v.12). Those God has chosen in love before the foundation of the world experience his covenant love expressed to us through his Son, Jesus.
v13-22
The third reason to praise God is because God sees all things. God “looks down from heaven” (v.13) which is where he is enthroned in power (v.14) to watch over all creation. He not only observes like a ruler with binoculars, but can discern their hearts (because he made them; v.15) and observe all they do.
God’s watching over all creation is not to see who is strong, but to care for those he loves. Kings are not saved by great armies or powerful weapons, nor warriors by their strength (vv.16-17). Instead, God saves those who look to him in trust (v.18), “that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine” (v.19). God delivers those he cares for, not those who are strongest and rely on themselves.
Since God looks down with care and concern for those he loves to deliver them by his powerful word, Psalm 33 closes by encouraging us to hope in God. We confidently trust (v.21) in God, “our help and our shield” (v.20) to deliver us. As we wait for God to deliver us (v.20), we hope in him and pray that his covenant love and mercy would fall on us (v.22).
Our passage applied
The wonderful news of Christmas is that God’s covenant love and mercy has fallen on us. At the right time in God’s plan, according to God’s will, Jesus was born in Bethlehem as the prophets foretold (Micah 5:2). The same God, the Word who made all things (John 1), took on human flesh and dwelt among us, that he might save us from our sins (Matt. 1:21).
The coming of Jesus some two thousand years ago demonstrates that God does watch over all the earth, caring for the people he has chosen for himself. God has delivered us from our sins through Jesus, our Immanuel. The plans of Herod, of Satan, of the Romans and the Jewish authorities were frustrated, because in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19).
We are not saved by our own strength, but by God’s grace through faith in his power expressed in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. The same Christ who came to save us some two thousand years ago, promised he would return to finally and completely deliver us from sin and death.
We remember and proclaim “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14) because God is our help and shield. Not only now at Christmas time, but always.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Resources
Questions? Please contact us. Inspired? Come and worship with us on Sundays.
