PSALM 89 - The Lovingkindnesses of God

Summer Psalms 2024 • Sermon • Submitted 4 months ago • Presented 4 months ago • 48:46

0 ratings

· 18 views

Instead of letting our circumstances define what we believe about God's character, we must allow what we know about God's character to define our circumstances

Files

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

From time to time I think it is important for folks who have been around for a while to pass on to the next generation the wisdom they have gained from their years of experience. And so I want to start off with a bit of wisdom that I learned through hard experience—I’m sure many of you here have also learned this lesson, but for those of you who haven’t yet gone through this particular hardship, I want to spare you the consequences of making the same mistake I have been known to make, and the bitter experience that came from it. Here it is:

Don’t drink orange juice right after brushing your teeth.

Admittedly, it’s not the most profound advice in the world, but there it is. I don’t know exactly what the interaction is between toothpaste residue and citric acid, but it is an unholy union that really doesn’t set you up for a delightful breakfast. Remember—OJ first, then the Aquafresh… The order of events really does matter.

Now, before you dismiss this as just a bit of silliness, have you ever considered that this is the way that so many people develop a bitter taste in their mouth with God. They have gone through some significant suffering in their lives; they have been ploughed under by the fallen evil of this world; they have been weighed down with great personal sickness or tragedy. And then (and here is the crucial bit), they define God on the basis of what they have suffered. They say, “Well, the terrible things that have happened to me must mean that God is powerless or absent or uncaring or cruel”. They have a bitter taste in their mouth about God because they have started with their suffering and then filtered their understanding about God through their trials.

But that is not what God’s Word shows us here in Psalm 89—believe it or not, this is a psalm of lament. But you would hardly know it, since it begins with such bright words of praise to God—you may even remember the old Sunday School song based on the first verse:

Psalm 89:1 (LSB)

I will sing of the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh forever; From generation to generation I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth.

This is one of the longest psalms in the entire psalter—and of its 52 verses, only fourteen verses actually address the lament of Israel’s plight. The psalmist spends 37 verses extolling the excellencies of God’s character before getting around to the trials he laments. And so this is the Biblical pattern that we must understand from this psalm this morning:

Do not define God’s CHARACTER by your TRIALS; define your TRIALS in light of His CHARACTER

Now, the old Sunday School song from Psalm 89:1 brings out a feature of this verse that turns out to be very important for understanding this psalm—the old song says “I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever...” The word is one that we have seen before, hesed, referring to the steadfast love, mercy, covenant love of YHWH for His children. So the literal rendering of the word in Hebrew is “I will sing of the lovingkindnesses of YHWH forever...”

This psalm is an exultation in the multifaceted lovingkindness of God; the many faces of God’s lovingkindness towards His people. Psalm 89 extols several different glories of God’s character, and the psalmist ties every one of them back to God’s steadfast, faithful covenant hesed love for His people.

So what I want to do this morning is walk us through this psalm so that we can learn to sing with the psalmist about the manifold lovingkindnesses of God. I want to fortify your delight in God’s faithful love this morning so that when the trials come (or in the trials you are currently facing) you will see them in light of His great and faithful love for you in Christ.

The first eighteen verses of this psalm are a song of

I. The faithful love of God in His AUTHORITY (Ps 89:1-18)

You can catch the Hebrew poetry pattern in the first two verses that parallel God’s “lovingkindness” with His “faithfulness”:

Psalm 89:1–2 (LSB)

I will sing of the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh forever; From generation to generation I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth. For I have said, “Lovingkindness will be built up forever; In the heavens You will establish Your faithfulness.”

And as we move through the first few verses of the psalm, we see that lovingkindness and faithfulness are the foundation of

His matchless SOVEREIGNTY (vv. 1-10)

And notice that the psalmist centers the supreme authority of God and His matchless character with His lovingkindness and faithfulness:

Psalm 89:5–8 (LSB)

The heavens will praise Your wonders, O Yahweh; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the sky is comparable to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the mighty is like Yahweh, A God greatly dreaded in the council of the holy ones, And fearsome above all those who are around Him? O Yahweh God of hosts, who is like You, O mighty Yah? Your faithfulness also surrounds You.

There are no other gods that can compare with the authority of YHWH—in great part because no other god is as faithful or steadfast in love as He is! He utterly and comprehensively rules over all other powers in creation—no other spirit or power or authority or “holy one” can match His fearsome might, and none of them can match His faithful lovingkindness!

And in verses 11-18 the psalmist goes on to extol the authority of God in

His magnificent PROVIDENCE (vv. 11-18)

Psalm 89:11–12 (LSB)

The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; The world and its fullness, You have founded them. The north and the south, You have created them; Tabor and Hermon sing with joy at Your name.

There are no boundaries to His rule—heaven and earth and all that fill them are within His reach, and within His authority. North to south, east to west (Mt. Tabor is in the southeast of Israel, Mt. Hermon in the northwest), there is not one square inch anywhere in all creation that is not held in His hand, or where His mighty arm cannot reach.

And how does He govern all things? How is His providence revealed in His exhaustive reach and control over all things?

Psalm 89:14 (LSB)

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before You.

His providential ordering of all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth and all that fills them is a providence characterized by His steadfast faithful love for His people!

Psalm 89:15–18 (LSB)

How blessed are the people who know the loud shout of joy! O Yahweh, they walk in the light of Your face. In Your name they rejoice all the day, And by Your righteousness they are exalted. For You are the beauty of their strength, And by Your favor our horn is exalted. For our shield belongs to Yahweh, And our king to the Holy One of Israel.

God’s covenant people rejoice in His providential authority over all things because His providence is characterized by His lovingkindness! He so ordains everything that happens to you for His glory and for your happiness! “How blessed are the people who know the loud shout of joy” in their certainty of God’s immoveable lovingkindness towards them in every move of His providence! Such a people will not let their trials define God’s character; they understand all of their trials and heartaches and difficulties in light of what they know about God’s lovingkindness as the foundation of His authority!

Starting in Verse 19, the psalmist moves on from extolling the faithful love of God in His authority to

II. The faithful love of God towards His ANOINTED (vv. 19-29)

See the shift in focus in verses 19-20:

Psalm 89:19–20 (LSB)

Formerly You spoke in vision to Your holy ones, And said, “I have bestowed help to a mighty one; I have exalted one chosen from the people. “I have found David My servant; With My holy oil I have anointed him,

Remember again the overarching structure of the Psalms—the five Books of the Psalms making up a “five-movement cantata” that sings of God’s faithfulness to His people. Book I is a collection of psalms focusing on the Anointed One of God—most of the psalms in Book I are either written by or about David, the Anointed King of Israel; Israel’s “Founding Father”, as it were. So this section of Psalm 89 goes back to the anointing of David as king of Israel in order to establish that God’s choice of David as king was yet another demonstration of His lovingkindness—first of all because David was

Chosen by pure GRACE (vv. 19-25; cp. 1 Sam. 16:6-13)

David was “chosen from among the people” (v. 19)—and you’ll remember from the account of David’s anointing in 1 Samuel 16 that His choice of David was not based on any “outward appearance”, but on what God saw in his heart (v. 6). No one in his family thought David should be considered—they didn’t even bother to call him in from the sheep pasture, after all! But God considered David when no one else did:

1 Samuel 16:12–13 (LSB)

So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And Yahweh said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon David from that day forward...

Yahweh did not only “bestow help to a mighty one” in anointing David—He bestowed the might to the mighty one! And would go on to grant David victory and skill and renown against his enemies:

Psalm 89:21–23 (LSB)

With whom My hand will be established; My arm also will strengthen him. “The enemy will not deceive him, Nor the son of unrighteousness afflict him. “But I shall crush his adversaries before him, And strike those who hate him.

God chose His anointed for His people out of His own lovingkindness and grace—but see the faithful love of God displayed in His anointed in verses 24-29—God’s anointed was not just chosen to be a mighty and victorious king—he was also

Chosen to be His own SON (vv. 26-29)

Psalm 89:26–28 (LSB)

“He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ “I also shall make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth. “My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him.

As we have noted, Book III of the Psalms are a series of laments over the apparent failure of God’s promises to His anointed, the king. And so this bright note in the midst of these lament-psalms is striking here. (And as the psalm progresses we will see that note of lament brought into the foreground in verses 38-45). But here in these verses is God’s firm promise that His lovingkindness toward His anointed one will never fail!

All of the laments in Book III of the Psalms are qualified and interpreted through the lens of the unfailing lovingkindness of YHWH! All of the dark imagery that follows in the next section is prefaced by the iron-clad, blood-sealed promise of Psalm 89:28:

Psalm 89:28 (LSB)

“My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him.

Psalm 89 teaches us that we must never define God’s character by our trials; we must define our trials by God’s character—do not say that His lovingkindness has failed because you endure hardship and suffering; say rather that your hardships and sufferings cannot prevail because of God’s unfailing lovingkindness to you!

The psalmist has extolled the faithful love of God in His absolute authority; he has sung of the lovingkindness and faithfulness that will never fail towards His anointed king. But then starting in verse 30 there is a shift—the psalmist goes from considering the lovingkindness of God demonstrated in His acts of holiness and righteousness to considering the lovingkindness of God as it relates to our acts of rebellion and lawlessness. Look with me at verses 30-37 as we consider

III. The faithful love of God in our CHASTISEMENT (vv. 30-37; cp. Heb. 12:6-8)

Psalm 89:30–32 (LSB)

“If his sons forsake My law And do not walk in My judgments, If they profane My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod And their iniquity with striking.

At first this sounds like the exact opposite of love to us, doesn’t it? This is the fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of love that pervades the world around us—if you love someone, you must never ever make them feel bad about anything. To love someone is to affirm them and accept them and celebrate them. When you hear people object to Biblical Christianity, they will often say, “Well, I believe in a God of love...” Meaning, “I believe in a God who will never ever want me to feel bad in any way...”

This has crept into the evangelical church in a big way—in an effort to appear “loving” on the world’s terms, we tend to soften what the Scriptures say about God’s love and His holiness. We say things like “God loves you just the way you are...”, where the Scriptures would have us say “God loves you despite the way you are...” “God’s grace toward sinners means that He does not consider ‘the way you are’ in your sin and rebellion and shame and wickedness when He looks upon you—everything short of immediate, eternal damnation for “the way you are is entirely rooted in His grace and mercy toward you.

God’s faithful, steadfast lovingkindness towards His people means that

He will not forego the CONSEQUENCES (vv. 30-32, cp. Prov. 13:24)

of our disobedience. There are times when He will “hurt our feelings” or cause us to suffer as a result of our wilful disobedience. As we saw in Hebrews earlier this year:

Hebrews 12:6–8 (LSB)

For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He flogs every son whom He receives.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Solomon’s words in Proverbs are as true today as they ever were:

Proverbs 13:24 (LSB)

He who holds back his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

It is because of His great steadfast, loyal love that God will not allow us to go undisciplined. But in the midst of that chastisement, in the midst of that correction and flogging from your Heavenly Father, the great hope that you have, Christian, is that

He will not forsake His own HOLINESS (vv. 33-37)

God says that when the children of His Anointed king, David, rebel against Him (as they did), that

Psalm 89:32 (LSB)

...I will punish their transgression with the rod And their iniquity with striking.

But He says in v. 33-34:

Psalm 89:33–34 (LSB)

“But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. “My covenant I will not profane, Nor will I alter what comes forth from My lips.

And in verse 35 is the rock-solid, unshakeable, hope-granting, confidence-boosting, peace-assuring foundation that God will not go back on His faithful covenant love for His people:

Psalm 89:35 (LSB)

“Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David.

Think about this for a moment—do you see the enormity of this statement? YHWH has staked His very holiness on keeping His promise of faithful covenant love to His people! God has said, in effect, “If I break my covenant love for David, I will forfeit my holiness!” Can you even fathom what God has promised in this?

Think of it—Isaiah tells us that this is the God Who is surrounded at every moment by the terrifying presence of the cherubim and seraphim who have been crying “HOLY HOLY HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY” throughout all eternity past down to this very moment. Were God to break His word—were He to make a lie out of His promise by ceasing to rest His love on His children—those mighty angels in that throne room would fall silent! They would uncover their faces and their feet, they would no longer need to shield themselves from His glory—because if He were to break His promise to love those who belong to His anointed, He would no longer be holy. He would no longer be God!

So here it is for you, laid out as clearly as can be—can God fail in His lovingkindness to you, Christian? Can God forfeit His holiness? You see, can’t you, how it could never be!

I hope you can see now why you can never define God’s character by your trials—God’s character must define your trials! The steadfast, unshakeable, faithful covenant lovingkindness of God cannot fail for His people! No matter what they suffer, no matter what they endure, no matter what they do—for those who belong to His Anointed One, nothing can separate them from His love! Surely Psalm 89:35 was in the Apostle Pa

Romans 8:38–39 (LSB)

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The psalmist has exulted over and over again in the steadfast faithful love of YHWH for His people—the faithful love of God undergirds His authority, the faithful love of God is seen towards His anointed, the faithful love of God abides even in our chastisement. And in the remainder of this psalm we are shown that we can cry out for

IV. The faithful love of God despite our FAILURE (vv. 38-51)

The next ten verses are a lament over the chastisement that the descendents of David (the kings of Judah) have suffered for their rebellion from Him:

Psalm 89:38–40 (LSB)

But You have cast off and rejected, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed. You have spurned the covenant of Your slave; You have profaned his crown to the ground. You have broken down all his walls; You have beset his strongholds with ruin.

He goes on to describe the way the Kings of Judah have been beaten in battle (vv. 42-43), and had their authority thrown down (vv. 44-45). This fits in with the theme of Book III of the Psalms, a classic lament over the apparent failure of God’s covenant with His Anointed, that David would never lack a descendent to sit on his throne. The psalmist has just finished singing about the never-failing love of YHWH for David and his descendents:

Psalm 89:36–37 (LSB)

“His seed shall endure forever And his throne as the sun before Me. “It shall be established forever like the moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful.” Selah.

And here we are in verses 38 onwards mourning that

We are too FRAGILE to endure His WRATH (vv. 38-48)

This is the plea here in verses 47-48:

Psalm 89:46–48 (LSB)

How long, O Yahweh? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire? Remember what my span of life is; For what vanity You have created all the sons of men! What man can live and not see death? Can he provide his soul escape from the power of Sheol? Selah.

In other words, the psalmist is crying out that at the rate things are going, he will die before he sees God’s lovingkindness return! He pleads with God: “Remember that we are short-lived creatures, God! The grave is coming for us, Sheol is opening its jaws to devour us—don’t let us slip down into the tomb before we see your lovingkindness return to us!”

Now look at this, Christian—even here, at the brink of death, with “one foot in the grave” as it were, the psalmist does not cease crying out to God on the basis of His lovingkindness! He will hold on to the hope of God’s steadfast love for His people even down to his last breath! If he has to die, he will die with a cry for God’s hesed on his lips!

Here is what we see as this psalm comes to a close—in the midst of your trials and sufferings and chastisements and disappointments and diseases and tragedies,

Your only hope is that He REMEMBERS his MERCIES (vv. 49-51)

Psalm 89:49–51 (LSB)

Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness? Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your slaves; How I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, With which Your enemies have reproached, O Yahweh, With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed.

This is the prayer of a heart that has placed all of its hope in God’s promise that His lovingkindness will not fail His children! By calling God to “remember His former lovingkindness”, he is calling God to keep the promise that He swore by His own holiness.

The psalmist could only cry out that God would someday remember His oath to His Anointed; that He would eventually return to the steadfast faithful love that He swore to David. But you and I, on this side of Calvary, have seen God’s remembrance of His lovingkindness to His Anointed One, Jesus Christ. He is the fulfillment of all of these verses—He is the Seed that endures forever (v. 36), He is the One Who has established His throne, the Faithful Witness that God always keeps His promises!

Think of it—Jesus Christ was the Anointed One of God. And though He was in very nature God”, utterly sinless and infinitely righteous, the One Whom it was written about in this psalm:

Psalm 89:22–23 (LSB)

“The enemy will not deceive him, Nor the son of unrighteousness afflict him. “But I shall crush his adversaries before him, And strike those who hate him.

He was instead afflicted by unrighteous men and crushed by His adversaries, and struck by those who hated Him. He was “cast off and rejected” (v. 38), He was weighed down with wrath from God on the Cross, His crown a profane and painful crown of thorns instead of a crown of glory. He became a reproach to His neighbors, and all His enemies were glad at His suffering. His splendor ceased, His days were cut off in His prime, He was wrapped up in shame and died a cursed death on a tree.

And because Christ the Anointed One suffered all these things, because He went down into the mouth of Sheol when it opened wide to receive Him, He provided your soul escape from death! Because He saw death, you will live and not see death!

John 8:51 (LSB)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death—ever.”

Christian, you know that God will never forsake His steadfast love for His people because He did not forsake Christ in the grave! The risen and reigning Christ is your unshakeable proof that the lovingkindness of God will never fail you!

Because Christ has risen again, the lovingkindness of God will not fail you when you succumb to temptation to sin—you may suffer the consequences, you will be disciplined and chastened. But you will be chastened by the nail-scarred hand of One Who has suffered all your condemnation—THERE IS NONE LEFT FOR YOU! So rest in the lovingkindness of God undergirds not only your redemption from your sin, but it is at the heart of all of your chastisement for your ongoing battles with sin!

Because Christ has risen again, the lovingkindness of God will not fail you when you are sinned against in this fallen world. When you suffer pain or heartbreak or loss or violence or abuse as a consequence of other sinners in this world, the lovingkindness of God means that He not only sees what has been done to you, it means that you are held by the nail-scarred hand of One Who has suffered more at the hands of sinful men than you ever will! He sees and understands the way you have fallen victim to wicked and evil sinners in this world because He is the supreme Victim who ever suffered. And He is the risen and reigning King who will someday make all the injustices and attacks and violence against you perfectly and utterly and eternally RIGHT. So rest in His lovingkindness that crushes Rahab like one who is slain and scatters His enemies with His strong arm!

Because Christ has risen again, the lovingkindness of God will not fail you when you suffer from the fallenness and decay of this broken world. Because the hand of providence that guides the wind and the waves and sets the boundaries for the frost and the forest fire, the hand that rules the swelling of the seas in tsunamis and the heaving of the ground in the earthquake, the hand that governs the raging of rebel nations and the move of economies and laws and disease and war and famine—that hand is the nail-scarred Hand of the One who rules and reigns this world in lovingkindness toward His people that can never be shaken! So rest in His lovingkindness that promises that there is nothing that can befall you to separate you from His love, and nothing that His providence brings into your life that will not redound to your eternal good and His eternal glory!

Friend, do not define God’s character in light of your trials. If you have that “bitter taste in your mouth” because you look at your hardships and say that God is therefore hard, you look at the cruelties you suffer and say then that God is cruel, you look on the pain that you have gone through and say that means God is a sadist, then let me plead with you from God’s Word this morning: If you think that God is hard and cruel and uncaring and indifferent because of what you have gone through in this life, then you haven’t seen anything yet.

Because this life—with all its pain and heartache and trials and disappointments and suffering that you want to blame God for—this life is that way not because of Who He is, but because of who we are. This world is full of brokenness and sin and rebellion and evil because we are broken and rebellious and evil. God created this world in perfection and beauty, we have broken and marred it by our sin.

But here is the lovingkindness of God toward us—that while we were yet sinners, while we were still rebellious and perverted and twisted and hateful and wicked—He sent His Anointed One to suffer on our behalf. Jesus Christ came as a Second Adam to set right what the First Adam ruined. Christ came to take on the wrath of God that by all rights should have fallen on us, so that we could be given a New Birth of righteousness. Stop looking at the pain and wickedness and darkness and brokenness of this world and blaming God for it—look instead to the lovingkindness of God revealed to you in the work of His Anointed. See the love waiting for you there and come away from all your sin, all your shame and pain and brokenness—come, and welcome!, to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Hebrews 13:20–21 (LSB)

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.