Holy Worship 2: His Love Endures Forever

Bible Reading

Psalm 136 CSB

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His faithful love endures forever. 2 Give thanks to the God of gods. His faithful love endures forever. 3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His faithful love endures forever. 4 He alone does great wonders. His faithful love endures forever. 5 He made the heavens skillfully. His faithful love endures forever. 6 He spread the land on the waters. His faithful love endures forever. 7 He made the great lights: His faithful love endures forever. 8 the sun to rule by day, His faithful love endures forever. 9 the moon and stars to rule by night. His faithful love endures forever. 10 He struck the firstborn of the Egyptians His faithful love endures forever. 11 and brought Israel out from among them His faithful love endures forever. 12 with a strong hand and outstretched arm. His faithful love endures forever. 13 He divided the Red Sea His faithful love endures forever. 14 and led Israel through, His faithful love endures forever. 15 but hurled Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea. His faithful love endures forever. 16 He led his people in the wilderness. His faithful love endures forever. 17 He struck down great kings His faithful love endures forever. 18 and slaughtered famous kings— His faithful love endures forever. 19 Sihon king of the Amorites His faithful love endures forever. 20 and Og king of Bashan— His faithful love endures forever. 21 and gave their land as an inheritance, His faithful love endures forever. 22 an inheritance to Israel his servant. His faithful love endures forever. 23 He remembered us in our humiliation His faithful love endures forever. 24 and rescued us from our foes. His faithful love endures forever. 25 He gives food to every creature. His faithful love endures forever. 26 Give thanks to the God of heaven! His faithful love endures forever.

One of the things that was a strong emphasis in my church after we moved here from South Africa was a critique of repetitive modern worship songs.

There was this idea that your hillsongs and planet shakers and bethel musics were taking a short cut and emotionally manipulating the people who sing the songs.

And this is bad. We should not use music to “infect” people with false emotions, we shouldn’t use repitition to move people. IF you wanted someone to take a step spiritually, the tool was the mind. IT was through the intellect first. The emotions and the love for God would follow.

The message was essentially that God wouldn’t use something like repetative music to move the heart.

This is the sentiment.

And as I was thinking of this, I was reminded of the story of young Billy. Billy was driving in the car with his Grandpa one day, and they were listening to Light Fm, and one of these repetitive modern worship songs came on.

And Billy said to his grandpa “Why does this song keep saying the same thing over and over and over?” And his grandpa chuckled and told him “Billy thats just the style of some of the modern worship music.”

And so Billy asked his grandpa. “But isn’t God bored of hearing the same thing over and over again?”

And i mean maybe we have been too polite to ask the same question, but it is worth reflecting on.

And so today I wanted us to think about this question Biblically for a moment. It is easy for us to just take on board what other, wiser people say about things, but let’s think about this from the perspective of what the Bible actually says.

Now before we jump in there are a few things we need to understand in order to really appreciate what this psalm is saying.

The word there for faithful love is the hebrew word Chesed. This is not a word that is directly translatable in English, we just have 1 word for love.

This is why the different english translations do different things here. The NIV has the refrain as

“His Love endures forever”

The ESV renders it as “His steadfast love endures forever”

The CSB which we read today gives us “His faithful love endures forever”.

Chesed is God’s covenant love. It is the kind of love that does the right thing always. It has mixed in with it the concept of grace. That is Chesed love will continue to do the right thing even though the other person isn’t doing the right thing.

The Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the Hebrew Bible (yes i sometimes read books like that), defines this phrase as follows:

The Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the Hebrew Bible (חֶ֫סֶד 2)

Chesed is defined as loyalty; joint obligation; faithfulness, goodness, graciousness; godly action, an unfailing kind of love, kindness, or goodness; often used of God’s love that is related to faithfulness to his covenant.

So when the psalm says his Chesed endures forever, it is saying that his good/right/loving actions in light of his Covenant endures forever.

So then secondly, if we understand God’s lovingkindness and faithful love, as a love that is expressed because of his faithfulness to his covenant, then we need to understand what the Covenant is.

So bear with me, but very briefly:

There are a number of covenants in the Bible - a covenant is kind of like a contract.

The first of these promises God made was to Adam and Eve, just after sin came into the world. He promised that one day someone would come who would undo the curse of sin - ultimately we know that that person is Jesus Christ.

Another of the major covenants in teh Bible is the covenant God made with Abraham - that he would make him into a great nation and that he would give him the promised land as his and his children’s possession and that the whole world would be blessed through him.

And it is this covenant with Abraham which is later refined and clarified when God makes a covenant with Israel through Moses, that this psalm mostly talks about.

It is the promises God made to abraham about Israel that this psalm reminds us of.

Ok so with that out of the way, let’s have a look.

So let’s have a look at Psalm 136.

The first thing we notice is that

Gesed Love shows God’s Character

Psalm 136:1–3 CSB

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His faithful love endures forever. 2 Give thanks to the God of gods. His faithful love endures forever. 3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 136:26 CSB

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven! His faithful love endures forever.

One of the questions we need to wrestle with as we mature and grow spiritually is the question of who is God to you?

What place does he hold in your life? Is he a helpful add on, someone you can turn to when things go wrong? Someone who can help you out in a spot of trouble?

What place does he hold in your life?

Psalm 136 teaches us that God is so much more than that. He isn’t some just a therapeutic help when things go wrong.

No he is the God of gods. The Lord of lords. The God of heaven.

The great preacher Spurgeon put it this way:

“[God] is good beyond all others; indeed, he alone is good in the highest sense; he is the source of good, the good of all good, the sustainer of good, the perfecter of good, and the rewarder of good. For this he deserves the constant gratitude of his people”.

It is no wonder then that the psalm starts with this command: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good”.

So how might we actually go about giving thanks to the Lord for his goodness?

I think the biggest challenge for us is to pray prayers of thankfulness.

Prayers of thankfulness. One of the things I have had to grow in over my years as a Christian is thankfulness in prayer. I mean we talk about this often, but percentage wise, how much of our prayers are spent giving thanks to the Lord for his goodness.

If you are anything like me, I think for most of us our default position is probably somewhere less than 10% of our prayer lives are devoted to thanking God.

So challenge number 1 today: when you pray today, measure how much of your normal prayer is thanking God for his goodness.

Maybe you want to specifically set aside time to pray only focussing on God’s goodness. his Godness.

Look at what the psalmist here teaches us to do. He is teaching us to tell God how good he is. It is not that scripture wants us to be encouraging to God, as if that was neccesary.

It is about us acknowliging who he is, as the God is above all other gods, he is the Lord above all other Lords.

Giving thanks to the Lord involves us praising God for his supremacy over other gods

“Lord you are worth so much more than the idols of today. Lord you are greater than money, you are greater than fame, you draw me out of the desire to become an influencer on tictok, out of the desire to become a wealthy business owner, and into a relationship as your child. Thank you Lord”.

Something like that. Maybe that can be your prayer tonight.

The psalm starts there, praising God for who he is. His Chesed love, is faithful covenant love, shows his character, his goodness and we are instructed to thank him for it.

But the psalmist then gets more specific. He moves from praising God for who he is, into what God has done.

Gesed Love marked God’s Creation

Psalm 136:4–9 (CSB)

4 He alone does great wonders.

5 He made the heavens skillfully.

6 He spread the land on the waters.

7 He made the great lights:

8 the sun to rule by day,

9 the moon and stars to rule by night.

And each time, comes the refrain: His faithful love endures forever.

Have you ever considered, that God’s love is shown to us in creation? Creation shows us God’s awesomeness. It shows us his power. It gives us a glimpse into his creativity and the art and wisdom that live within him.

God’s love, his faithful and enduring love was already there in the creation. When he flung the first stars out into space, when he skillfully wove together the heavens, when he commanded the water that you may come this far, up to this bit of land and no further,

when he made the sun and the moon and the stars, right from the beginning of history, God’s faithful love was evident.

It is in love that God made the universe.

Creation declares his majesty.

And it is for this reason that God can call every human being to account. Creation shouts that God exists, that he is there, that he is loving.

Romans 1:19-20 tells us this clearly

Romans 1:19–20 CSB

19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

There is no one who can say - I didn’t know God existed. I had no proof of God’s work. I didn’t know God was real.

No friends, the world, the creation, the beauty and the awe readily seen in creation declare the glories of God.

Again one of the best examples of this I have ever seen is in the first season of travel guides. This is a show where people go to various places around the world and they give their reviews of whatever holiday they go on. In this particular episode they go to Mt Earslow in New Zealand, and they take a helicopter ride to the base of a glacier. And I actually want to show you this clip.

I have used this clip once before a couple of years ago now, but it is sooooo helpful in illustrating this exact point - that Creation moves us to worship God.

Its 3 minutes, long and I can spend 3 minuites explaining this to you, or I can just show you this.

[show video]

Is it any wonder my friends, that one of the key strategies that Satan uses today is for us to be is distracted. To fail to pay attention to God, Where we look down at our phones or computers or books or other things, and fail to see the glory of God that surrounds us all.

The psalmist draws us back and says - no look at creation. See the glory of God revealed in it,

and give thanks for that.

God’s chesed love is revealed to us in creation.

It is shown to us in his character and revealed to us in creation.

But most importantly we see it in salvation.

God’s Chesed love leads to salvation.

Gesed Love supplied God’s Cleansing

Psalm 136:10-24 is all about God’s saving power.

Now we need to understand that this psalm was sung during the passover feast. This is the feast where Israel was reminded every year of how God rescued them out of slavery in Egypt.

What happened during the passover is that as one of the ten plagues that God used to convince Pharaoh to let his people go out of Egypt the firstborn son of eveyrone in the land would die.

But there was a way out - a sacrificial lamb was to be slain. The blood of this lamb, which had to be perfect by the way, would be smeared over the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites.

And if there was no blood, no sacrifice, there was no safety from death.

This became a perpetual feast that Israel was to celebrate every single year. Every year they were to be reminded that God saved them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, by celebrating this passover feast.

Again this repetition of God’s salvation for Israel as a nation to reflect on year after year.

And this psalm was sung each year during the passover.

And it tells the story of how God saved Israel out of egypt.

It tels the story of how the red sea was parted by God to let Israel leave.

These events established Israel as a nation, and in fact they are a fulfilment of God’s covenant promises to Abraham.

God had made a promise to Abrham to give him a land and make him into a people and to bless the whole world through his offspring, and now God was showing his chesed, his faithful love in saving the people that had come from Israel, and bringing them into the promised land.

V16 reminds his people that

Psalm 136:16 CSB

16 He led his people in the wilderness. His faithful love endures forever.

He kept them safe while they were wondering.

v17-24 talks about how he delivered the promised land of Canaan over to them. How he caused the kings that lived there to be defeated.

The promises to Abraham fullfilled.

In every way conceivable for a pre-exile Israelite, God had truely shown himself to be a God of chesed love.

Covenant love.

Eduring love.

He is good, he is the king over all, he created teh world, and he saved the peopel of ISrael out of egypt and fulfilled his covenant promises to Abraham.

His love endures forever.

And that is all good.

But that feels incomplete doesnt it.

What difference does that make to us - we who do not live in israel. Who are not part of teh people of God who had been saved and marched throuhg the red sea.

We are not living in Canaan, and we don’t celebrate the passover as a reminder that God passed over us when the firstborn of Egypt was destroyed.

So what does this all have to do with us?

Well The people to whom the psalm was written, only saw a small portion of God’s creative work.

They only saw a small part of His work of salvation and redemption.

They saw only a small part of His work of provision for His people.

All of that pointed to something far greater and grander that was still on the distant horizon. But friends, that much redemptive event has already happened!

All of history pointed towards it and worked towards it, and it has come, because Jesus – the one who actually made the world, the one who actually saves not just out of egypt, but out of sin– had come!

The people who this psalm was originally written for, could only look back on their deliverance from Egypt.

But not us.

You and I have been given the glorious opportunity of looking back not just at being saved out of a physical Egypt, but a much deeper spiritual egypt.

We have been saved from our slavery, not to pharoah, but to sin.

And because of that, we too can say with the psalmist that the

Lord is good and that his steadfast love endures forever.

Our proof is not in God staying true to his covenant promises to Abraham, in setting up the nation of Israel.

Our proof is that God stayed true to his covenant promises to Adam, that he would send someone to overcome the curse of sin.

And in Jesus he did.

Verses 10-15 told us that the people of Israel were set free from their bondage to slavery in Egypt through God’s mighty acts, and that the exodus was the crucial event that defined them as the people of God. It was a decisive point in redemptive history.

But friends, looking back from our vantage point, we can see that there was an even more crucial event – in fact it was THE crucial event in all of redemption history: the death of Jesus on the cross.

The exodus is merely a dim picture of the redemption that we have in Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God who shed His blood to set sinners free. God’s mighty arm was revealed in the exodus, but his powerful love for His people was revealed even more so on the cross.

The people of Israel were guided and provided for through all their years in the wilderness. They were brought into the land which their faithful God had promised them, and he provided for them in that inherited land. We too are brought into a new inheritance, aren’t we, when we accept the crucified and risen Christ.

We may have spent years in the wilderness away from God. We may have done things which we are not proud of. We may have been on that broad road that leads directly to hell. Yes, we were once outside of God’s family, but in His grace and mercy He brought us in.

But friends, anyone who repents and accept Jesus as Saviour has become a new creation. All those who accept Jesus as Lord of their life are clothed in the righteousness of Christ and are adopted into God’s family.

The God of gods and the Lord of lords wasn’t only faithful to the people of the Old Testament or the New Testament. The God who was faithful to His people in history, is still the same God and He remains faithful to His promises.

In fact, from where we are, we can write another verse and add it to this psalm.

One that says:

God sent his Son, Jesus Christ

His faithful love endures forever

He took our sins, paid the price

His faithful love endures forever

defeated death, rose in trice (that means he came back on the third day)

his faithful love endures forever.

In him, we find paradise

because his faithful love endures forever.

Amen.