Sing Unto Him a New Song

As I continued to meditate on the words, “Sing unto him a new song,” I began to see that the word new is carrying more than the idea of a newly written song.

At first glance, the word new stood out to me, and I began to follow it. Let me say plainly what I was doing. I was following an English word through an English Bible, and the Hebrew underneath it is not what I was tracing. And two of the passages I will bring do not carry the word at all. Psalm 51 says restore. Philippians says worketh in you. I am gathering them because of the thought, not because of the word.

And here is what these passages brought to me, and I want to be careful how I say it. I am not telling you that the word new means renewal. It means new. What I am telling you is that the thought these passages left me with was renewal, refreshing, deepening, restoration. Elsewhere Scripture speaks of old things passing away and of Him making all things new, so the word plainly carries that too. What these gave me is a God at work in the lives of His people.

And read what the psalm gives as the ground of the praise, in verse 4.

The word of the LORD is right, and all his works are done in truth. That is the reason the psalm gives. The song is not new because God has changed. And that I read it as the believer continuing to discover the faithfulness of a God who does not change is my reading. This brought my thoughts to Psalm 40:3,

One Is Commanded, One Is Given

In Psalm 33 the believer is commanded to sing a new song. In Psalm 40 God Himself puts the new song into David’s mouth. That I hold the two together, the command in one psalm and the giving in the other, is my joining. They are two psalms and neither one mentions the other. Then my thoughts moved to Lamentations 3:22-23,

Read it closely. His compassions fail not, and THEY are new every morning. It is the compassions the verse calls new. And what I take from it is not that God changes from day to day, but that His faithfulness keeps meeting us. And here is how I have lived it, and it is mine and not the verse. Yesterday’s mercy carried me through yesterday’s trouble, today’s carries me through today’s, and I expect tomorrow’s to meet tomorrow’s need.

Yesterday's Prayer Cannot Carry Today

Years ago I came to realize something in my own walk with God. Yesterday’s prayer cannot replace today’s prayer, and that does not mean yesterday was wasted. Yesterday becomes the foundation upon which today is built.

I am not throwing away yesterday. I am bringing yesterday’s lessons into today, and that is how I have found growth to work in me.

When the wheel was invented, future generations did not throw away the wheel and begin again. They built upon it, improved it, strengthened it, and developed it. The foundation remained, but progress was made, the same is true spiritually. And that is my picture. Yesterday’s prayer under today’s prayer, yesterday’s understanding under today’s, yesterday’s growth as the platform for more.

If after five years I am praying exactly the same prayers, pursuing God at exactly the same depth, understanding exactly the same truths, and responding to life in exactly the same way, then I must honestly ask whether growth has occurred.

I remember two of my grandchildren when they were young. One was about seven years old and the other about four. The older child spoke according to his age, what surprised me was that the younger child could sit and converse with him with remarkable ease. If someone listened without knowing their ages, they would have difficulty identifying the younger child’s developmental level, because he was communicating beyond what was expected for his age. Growth reveals itself, not merely in years but in development.

And Hebrews says something very like it about the people it was written to.

For the time ye ought to be teachers. The writer looks at the time that has passed and then looks at where they actually are. And how I measure it, and the measuring is mine, is by growth in the knowledge of Him, in trust, in understanding, in worship, in obedience and in discernment.

The Fig Tree in the Caribbean

This reminds me of the banana tree at home. Where I come from we call it a fig, though it is not the fig tree of Scripture at all, so let me name it properly. After the fruit is harvested, my mother cut it down almost to the stump. To someone unfamiliar with it, that looks harsh. She said if it is not done, it will just stand there and not bear again. That is what she told me, in her words, and I am not giving it to you as the science. That stem was finished either way. What the cutting does is clear the way for the young ones coming up behind it. I never saw one left standing, because she never left one.

And Jesus speaks of cutting too, though His picture is a vine and not a banana tree. Mine only put me in mind of His.

He purgeth it, THAT IT MAY BRING FORTH MORE FRUIT. Jesus gives the reason for the cutting Himself, and the reason is more fruit. That I put teaching and correcting alongside the pruning is my adding, and John says pruning. And what I have watched through it is fresh mercies, fresh lessons, fresh opportunities. Then we arrive at Psalm 51:12,

Renewal Is Not Always Something New

David is not asking for a new salvation, he is asking for renewed joy. He asks for the joy of it to be restored, not for the salvation to be given again. That I read the restoring as his enjoyment of what he already had is my reading of it.

This adds another layer to the thought. Renewal is not always about receiving something we never possessed before. Sometimes it is God reawakening something that has grown weak within us.

This reminds me of weight loss or a facelift. The person remains the same person, their identity has not changed, they have been refreshed, renewed, improved, or restored. And that is how I see God working, and the seeing is mine and not the analogy proving anything. He renews and restores what He has already begun.

The same God who gives a new song in Psalm 40 is the God who restores joy in Psalm 51. The same God whose compassions are new every morning in Lamentations is the God David asked to restore his joy. The same God who commands a new song in Psalm 33 is the God who supplies the grace to sing it. Paul expresses this truth in Philippians 2:13,

The believer obeys, and God worketh in him both to will and to do. That is Paul’s sentence and that is all of it. Now here is the rest of my thought, and it is mine, gathered from the other psalms and not from Philippians. The believer sings, and I believe God gives the song. The believer seeks, and I believe God stirred the desire. The believer worships, and I believe God woke the heart.

Putting Them All Together

When all these passages are considered together, one truth becomes clear. His compassions are new every morning, and Lamentations says every morning. That His work within His people continues every day is my way of putting it, and Paul does not measure it in days. And what I take from that is that there is no season in which I have nothing left to seek Him for.

The God of yesterday is still faithful today, yesterday’s lessons become today’s foundation. Today’s mercies become tomorrow’s testimony, And what I have found is that He keeps revealing His faithfulness through the seasons, so there has always been another song to sing, another joy to be restored, and more of Him to know.

The emphasis is not on novelty, it is not on chasing something new, it is on a living relationship. A living relationship ought to grow, ought to deepen, ought to mature, ought to produce fresh worship. Hebrews shows people who had the time and did not. And that is where I want to be. Growing, renewed, and offering fresh praise out of a relationship that keeps going deeper with the same unchanging God.