Steadfast

Steadfastness is Holding to God

Everyone has a price.

This is a phrase you might have heard before and it’s this idea that every single person can be persuaded to do anything - for the right price. I mean, no one in here would punch the person next to them in the face as hard as they possibly could right now for no reason. But, what if I were to offer you $50. No, of course not, your honor and decency isn’t for sale for a measly $50. But what if I were to offer you $100 or $100,000? Or to think about it in another way, have you every heard someone say something like “I wouldn’t miss it for the world?” I mean, it’s a nice thing to say, but if Taylor Swift calls up Rob to give him tickets to a Chiefs game, he’s probably going to miss it. We say we’re going to do things or be places, but there’s probably a limit to how far that commitment goes.

Which contrasts this idea of steadfastness that we find in the Psalm we just read. God is sending our His steadfast love and the Psalmist prays for a steadfast heart. And when I think of steadfast I think of people who always show up. People who, if they say they’re going to be somewhere then they’re going to be there - no matter what. It’s those friends who are there for you anytime, those friends who don’t care if you’re having a bad day or if you’ve been a jerk recently, those friends who would pick you up from a bus station in the bad part of town at one in the morning just because you called. It’s those people who stick by their principles no matter what. It’s those couples who stay together through thick and thin, no matter what circumstances life throws their way.

But this Psalm isn’t just talking about steadfastness in general, it’s talking about the steadfastness of God and being steadfast in our faith. And when we’re talking about steadfast in the faith, steadfastness is how God always is there for us.

In The Direst Need

And in the beginning of this Psalm, David talks about God as a refuge. And when I hear that word the first image that comes to mind for me is something from Lord of the Rings - the fortress of Helm’s Deep. It’s a fortress carved from the solid rock of a mountain where the people of Rohan would go when they were in deep trouble. The walls had never failed, never been broken into.

That’s the kind of image that David writes about here. God is our refuge, He has never failed and He never will. Sometimes, when people are faced with difficult situations they react without really thinking and do the first thing that comes to mind. Steadfastness is holding to God even in those kinds of situations, is going to God even when we’re faced with situations that make it hard to process and hard to think. And the steadfastness of God means that when we turn to Him, He will never turn us away. Steadfastness is God always being there for us, especially when we need Him most desperately.

In the Face of Challenge

But these situations where we need a refuge are not the only ones that the Psalm talks about, it also talks about some of the perils that we face. David wrote this while he was hiding in a cave from King Saul, who wanted to kill him and was chasing after him with an army. He needed God to be with him because the people around him were trying to do him harm.

And while none of us, at least as far as I am aware, have people chasing us specifically down with armies, most of us have experienced people who have introduced difficulties into our life. Like people cutting you off in traffic, or people treating public spaces poorly and breaking them, or people at the gym who don’t rack their weights, or your neighbor with the loud dog that kept you up all night, or that coworker who doesn’t pull their weight and takes credit for your work. Some of those difficulties even can become difficulties for our faith. Like if you have a boss who doesn’t respect your time at all and who forces you to work on Sunday mornings, or if you have friends or family members who make fun of you for living by your faith, or if the cost of living is making you choose between paying the power bill and faithfully tithing. But even in those situations, our God is steadfast. And the steadfastness of God means that no matter what else is going on in our lives, nothing can come between us and Him. Steadfastness is God always being there for us, even in the face of life’s challenges.

In the Joyful Times

In all of the trials of our lives, God is always with us. He is with us when we need Him desperately, He is with us when other people are challenging us, and His steadfast love was what sent out Jesus to the cross. When David writes that “God will send our His steadfast love and His faithfulness,” we know that He already did! God sent Jesus to bear with us in all parts of life and to bring us grace and forgiveness so that we can spend an eternity with God in paradise. And so we respond as David did, with praise. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens and let Your glory be over all the earth! God is with us in the times of joy too, in those times - like Christmas - when we celebrate life and all of the gifts He has given us, none greater than the gift of eternal life we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. So I want to invite you to stand and sing praise with the worship team as we close this time in God’s Word with the doxology.