The Lord's Steadfastness
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 206 viewsGod is steadfast in both word and action and faithful toward mankind, especially to those who fear him. Therefore, we should hope in him and sing praises to his name.
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction
Introduction
Will you trust in God, or will you try to do it your own way?
That was the question I was left with on that night.
It had been a traumatic evening, and I remember it clear as day. I was eating leftover rice at the kitchen table when my mother walked in the door to our house, followed closely by the pastor’s wife and then the pastor. They were both clearly distraught. I was told to go get my brothers, even though they were in bed for the evening. After I brought them out to the living room, and we sat down on the couch, it was explained to us that our father was a criminal and he had just turned himself in.
We were all shocked.
The pastor sat with our family and prayed and read through scripture as we processed the information. My mother was in distress.
And then, after a few hours of hearing comfort from God’s word, my brothers and I went to our beds.
I remember laying there that night thinking through a lot of things. It felt like everything I had grown up with had been a lie. My father had lied to me my entire life. My family and I might need to move because of finances. My family felt broken and destroyed. I might not be able to return to school because this was going to be a big news story and we lived in a small town. The public image our family had built up as god-fearing Christians was forever tarnished. Everything that I knew was turned upside down in a day.
Except for one thing, God.
When all else seemed to fade away, God’s presence was there.
I had been a Christian for who knows how many years, and at that point I knew him as my Lord and savior.
And when I was thinking through my emotions and my shock, and determining how I should respond to the news of my father, I was left with the question: Will you trust in God, or will you try to do it your own way?
And the next few days I thought upon that question. Everything in me wanted to retreat from civilization. To lock myself up in my room and to never see the light of day again. To move away from the public shame and to find a new place to call home. To delve deeper into my depression and to focus upon the pain that I felt. But the Lord’s presence helped me see that my way was not the best. His way was better. His way was time-oriented; healing through him might not come immediately, but eventually. His way meant helping cook food for my family when they were out of commission. His way meant trusting in him enough to return to school to face whatever shame would be cast my way. And as I grew older and moved to college, I found His way meant trusting that my father found forgiveness through Jesus Christ; that I could forgive him for his sins just as God forgives, and that my problems weren’t strictly my father’s fault but that I had to take some responsibility.
And throughout life, I’ve had this question in the back of my head: “Will you trust in God, or will you trust in your own way?”
My encouragement to you, as I have discovered, is this: Trust in God’s way, because he is steadfast and faithful and loving. He will work things for your good.
Today, we will be reading a Psalm that shows the steadfastness of the Lord in his lovingkindness toward us. Even when it doesn’t seem like it, even when your life circumstances seem to dictate otherwise. The Lord remains a steadfast and constant hope. So if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Psalm 33. If not, please use the pew Bibles in front of you. It’s found on page 433. Reading directly from the scriptures is important, because there are certain things that my slides up here cannot capture, such as the grouping of paragraphs and ideas, and the flow and structure of the text. So please follow along in your Bibles today as I read from my Bible, Psalm 33 beginning in verse 1.
Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.
Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man;
from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth,
he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.
The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.
Amen. Let us pray.
Praise Befits the Lord (vv.1-3)
Praise Befits the Lord (vv.1-3)
Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.
Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
This tells us what type of praise we should sing.
Do you remember that David was a musician? That he would play in the courts of Saul when the Lord sent an evil spirit into him, and David’s playing would calm him?
Surely, we must use our skills and our talents, our most excellent gifts in music and worship, to praise the Lord. He is righteous. We are to give shouts of joy!
That’s a challenging one for me. I don’t like shouting in general.
The Lord is Steadfast in Love (vv.4-5)
The Lord is Steadfast in Love (vv.4-5)
For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
Have you ever heard anyone argue that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New? I have. In fact, I had a high school English teacher who insisted that they were two separate gods. He claimed that because the Old Testament God seemed so wrathful, it couldn’t be the same God who came down to earth to save humanity. Unfortunately his observations from scripture drew the wrong conclusions. If he had been faithful to study the scriptures closely, he would have seen just how loving and true God is, from the beginning, throughout human history, throughout the time of Jesus, and even now.
The fact is, God’s steadfast love does not change.
And I think it’s these verses, verses 4 and 5, that cut to the heart of what this psalm is all about. They give us the why behind why we’re able to sing to the Lord with such praise. And it’s this very fact of the Lord’s steadfast love that I want you to meditate upon this morning.
The word that’s used for steadfast love here is Hesed. Hesed denotes a type of faithfulness, a loving devotion, a loving righteousness. It’s the type of faithfulness that one would expect in a marriage relationship, except that when it’s used with God, it goes a whole lot further.
Why? Because the word of the Lord never changes.
Think of all the things around you that change.
When you pass by your neighbor’s house and you see the paint peeling off, you know that at one point in time that paint was new. But because of time and exposure to sun and the elements, that layer of paint has begun to chip.
At one point in time that tree in your yard was just a sapling. How big is it now? What will it be like in 100 years? Maybe it will be gone.
You wake up in the mirror and look and see another wrinkle, another grey hair, or a difference in your height. That’s change.
But God never changes, and his word never changes. And neither does his attitude toward you. He remains steadfast. He’s the sure and steady anchor. He’s the rock of ages, the fortress for our defence.
And these verses speak to the steadfastness of God’s word.
Part of living in a fallen world means that things deteriorate around us.
But with God, because his ways are righteous, because he is perfectly just, because he is without sin … there is no death. There is no deterioration or shadow due to change. He remains steadfast and constant.
Need an example? Well, just look at creation. The whole earth is filled with his steadfast faithfulness.
And that’s exactly what we see in the next few verses
Steadfastness seen in creation (vv.6-7)
Steadfastness seen in creation (vv.6-7)
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses.
If you want tangible evidence of God’s faithfulness, consider this: Has a mountain fallen upon you recently? Have you woken up with a whole new landscape outside your house each new day? Has the earth been thrown off of orbit to rotate too close to the sun or too far away from it? Has another planet crashed into ours?
God is in control of the universe. At his word planets and stars and galaxies were made … and they still remain in place to this day. The stars and heavenly bodies were given to mankind so that they would be able to mark time. So if you want a picture of the steadfastness of God’s word and character, consider the things that have been there since the beginning of marking time.
Not only is God in control of the stars and the sun and the moon and the planets, he’s also in control of the earth, the weather. We’re told that he gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. Just as you might gather sand together to make a pile, so the oceans are with the Lord. God’s the one who sets boundaries for the oceans and seas. He puts the deeps in storehouses. The whole earth is not covered in water … why? Because the Lord has stored away that water, whether in our Earth’s mantle or in our polar ice caps, they have been stored away. If you want a picture of God’s faithfulness, consider the fact that we have a world map of continents and when you study that map, you don’t expect it to change much during your lifetime.
Looking at creation and the world around us should give us a picture of God’s steadfastness. And if he is steadfast with creation, why should he not be steadfast toward us?
A fitting response (vv.8-9)
A fitting response (vv.8-9)
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
The fitting response of people, of humans, to witnessing God’s power in his word and the fact that things can materialize and take substance according to his will should be awe. Complete and utter amazement, and respect, and worshipful reverence.
When was the last time you were in awe of the Lord?
Sometimes we lose sight of our awe of the Lord when we think we know it all. Maybe we become complacent and set in our ways, and we cling on to the knowledge that we have, trying to find our hope and our steadfastness in them. We rely too deeply upon our experience to guide us or our previous studies to the point that we fail to notice the new message that God is bringing, whether through life or through his scriptures. If you think that you know a lot and that you are so great because you have so much experience … think again. With the Lord there are new joys each and every morning. Just because you’ve been on this earth sixty, seventy, eighty years, doesn’t mean there isn’t more to learn. There’s still so much more of the Lord and his ways to discover. With the Lord there are always opportunities to further gaze and wonder at his majesty and greatness. With the Lord there are opportunities to learn something a new way, and to not lean upon your own knowledge but upon his. Remember the Proverb? “Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
When you rely on the Lord’s ways, and you acknowledge him and you seek to find him, he will draw near to you. He will make your paths straight. Holding onto our knowledge, limited as it may be, even though it could be good knowledge, will not necessarily lead you down the right paths always. Only the Lord will do that. Because he knows when that knowledge that you have should be applied and in which circumstances. And maybe your present context, your present circumstance demands something of you that your former knowledge cannot supply. Only through trust in him and his guidance will you be able to walk through the challenge ahead.
So God is loving and steadfast and we should stand in awe of him.
God’s counsel remains the same (vv.10-12)
God’s counsel remains the same (vv.10-12)
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
One thing that is frustrating to me about any long-lasting human government is that there are so many laws. You could be breaking a law right now and not even know it. I looked up some laws for our state: Did you know it’s illegal to catch a fish by throwing a rock at it? I don’t see why you would need to, but it’s still a law in the books. It’s also illegal to fake wrestle. I suppose it’s all or nothing with us, either you wrestle fully or you don’t wrestle at all. You cannot use an X-ray at a shoe store. In Skamania county if you encounter bigfoot, you cannot harass him since he is considered an endangered species.
Laws were created at one point in time to address a specific issue. And human governments seem to pile up laws, and some become lost to the annals of time while others compound frustrations for the present time. There are so many laws about your taxes that often you need a tax expert in order to understand them.
With man, laws and what is expected of us according to human government is not always easily understood.
But with God, what is expected and what ought to be anticipated, has been made clear since the very beginning. It’s right here in this book: That mankind has sinned, but God sent his own son Jesus to die on the cross for us and to rescue us from our sin, that it’s not according to anything we do to be saved but that it’s a free gift of God to anyone who would believe, and that one day Jesus will return to the earth to save those who trust in him and to bring condemnation to those who reject him.
Not only do we have the written word of God, we have our consciences which tell us right from wrong. We read in Romans that because we have a conscience from God whereby the law of God is written on our hearts that no one is without excuse. Not the person in South America who lived in the times before Jesus nor the most insulated neighbor of yours now. We know that it’s wrong to try to assume control of the whole world … why? Because God is the rightful ruler. We know that it’s wrong to kill people … why? Because in God’s eyes each human bears his image, and their life holds value.
God’s way, his counsel, remains the same. He has always been steadfast in love and faithfulness. The sign has been in front of you all along. There should be no unexpected turn in the road ahead for any human because the signs are clearly posted.
And there are a people who live according to God’s righteous laws: In the context of this Psalm, those people, that nation, was Israel, but because Jesus came and broke down the barrier dividing Israel with the rest of the world we know of the new people that was formed: the universal church. For
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
and
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Part of God’s counsel, part of God’s plan since the beginning of time, has been the salvation and redemption of his enemies. The reconciliation of those who once lived for themselves obeying their own laws, but have now found righteousness in Jesus Christ and obey the Lord’s righteous ways.
God’s plan for mankind, how we should live, has been the same all along.
And it’s by his requirement that we should live.
The Lord knows the heart (vv.13-17)
The Lord knows the heart (vv.13-17)
The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man;
from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth,
he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.
The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.
Think about the Lord’s point of view for a moment. The Lord sees you. You and all the intentions of your heart are laid bare before him. He knows what you place your trust in and what you turn to in times of need. He knows what way you should live and he sees when you step off the right path and chase your own desires. He sees when you trust in your own strength to do things. He sees when you trust in a false hope. When I read this, I was struck once again at my own weaknesses, at my own sinfulness. There’s nothing that you can do that you can hide from God. If you have something that’s creating a divide between you and him, get rid of it. Confess your sin and repent, and turn toward him. Because at the end of the day, it’s your relationship with him that will carry on into eternity. So God observes all your misdeeds.
But on the flip side of that, he sees all of your good deeds as well. He sees when your heart hopes in him, despite not seeing a way out. He sees when you love others out of the generosity of your heart and not simply out of action. He sees the steps you take to reach the lost and the heart of love behind the gifts you give.
And he doesn’t sit idly by.
He is a living God after all.
The Lord is faithful to deliver you (vv.18-19)
The Lord is faithful to deliver you (vv.18-19)
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.
There’s an old hymn, and maybe you’ve heard it. It’s titled “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. It’s a hymn that I think captures the idea of the Lord’s watchfulness and faithfulness. It reads,
“Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow,
and I know He watches me;
“I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.”
The Lord is keeping a special eye out for those who fear his name and are living according to his word. Through Jesus your soul is delivered from death. Through Jesus you are kept from the spiritual famine that was ravishing your life. It’s a famine that still plagues this world but for the believer there is a hope in the Lord because his love is steadfast.
Which brings me to my last point:
Our Hope should be in the Lord (vv.20-22)
Our Hope should be in the Lord (vv.20-22)
Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.
Are you weary and burdened with sin? Is your heart within you troubled from the weight of this world? Set your heart upon the deliverance of Jesus. Lean into his protection and his promises. The Lord is steadfast. He will send help to your weary soul. He will refresh you in the hour of need. He is a shield to the attacks of the enemy. When you trust in him and you claim his name, there will be no evil that can stand against you. When you rest in him, your soul will be renewed. When all else fails, your health, your worldly riches, the people around you, the Lord will remain steadfast. He is the firm foundation, the steadfast one who is reliable above all else.
Has he not established the heavens and the earth?
Has he not made his will known from the beginning and to the end?
If he has done these things, will he not much more be faithful to those who love him?
He will. God will deliver your soul from evil when you trust in him, when you hope in him.
(pause)
And one special note here at the end.
Note the use of the plural, “our” in these final few verses. The plural here is a reminder that you are not alone. We wait for the Lord together. We trust in God together. We share in Christ together. God has given you a community who shares your pain, who understands your weaknesses. You don’t have to walk through difficult times alone.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So looking back at the Psalm as a whole, what do we see?
We see praise of God for his steadfastness in creation and toward man, especially toward those fear him. Therefore, our hope is in the Lord.
Knowing this, I found three major points of application:
Find Awe in the Lord
Trust in the Lord’s Steadfastness
Claim His promises as your own.
Find Awe in the Lord
Sometimes it takes moving your eyes off of your current circumstance and onto something greater than you to help your circumstance. In John Piper’s words, “What you set your heart upon is what it will grow towards.” If our hearts are set upon the things of this world, upon the unpleasantness of our circumstances, that is what our moods and attitudes will reflect. But if instead we search diligently to find the Lord and to see him, and our hearts are set upon something higher and greater, then we will be filled with him despite our circumstances.
So find Awe in the Lord. If that means going out to the beach and staring off into the ocean and marveling at the wonders of how he keeps the boundaries of the ocean in place, then go do it! If it means taking a walk at night and staring up at the sky and wondering how the Lord brings clouds over the land or how he set the stars of the heavens in place and what each one is named, then do it! Creation proclaims the majesty of the king. If finding awe in the Lord takes sitting down and meditating upon the truths of scripture and applying it as a salve to your heart, then do it. Find awe in the Lord so your heart and life can be lived for him in praise.
Trust in the Lord’s Steadfastness
We as people tend to be fickle. We want one thing one day and another thing the next. We tend to trust in God one day and run away from him the next. The mature Christian, the mature believer, has learned to be steadfast, just as the Lord. For the one who is no longer tossed to and fro by the winds and waves of this life but who remains steadfast has found their rest and peace in Jesus Christ. Are you stuck in a cycle of sin or depression? The Lord Jesus is the lifeline thrown to you by which you are able to pull yourself out once again. Jesus said “Behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” He will never leave you nor forsake you. His word stands forever. It is up to you whether or not you trust the Lord at his word or not.
Claim His Promises as your own
And it comes down to you: The Lord has extended his hand of loving kindness. Great and mighty as he is, he has come down to your level to speak with you. And you have the choice, today, throughout this week, throughout the coming months and years, to trust him at his word and accept the promises he gives to those who trust in him, or to try to do things on your own. When you do this, he will deliver you. He will be your shield from the temptation of the enemy. His mighty hand will save you from the turmoil of politics. No family squabble will distract you from living in loving kindness, nor evil words spoken against you take root … for your confidence will be found in the Lord. When you claim the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ and become a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom, the Lord will work all things for your good, as you live according to his will.
So, church, what will it be? Will you trust in the Lord, as he has proved his steadfastness and kindness to you? Or will you try to do it your own way?