Psalm 118 - God's Faithful Love

Hi! I’m Matt, I’m married to Liz, and I’m dad to Emily. We’re regulars at morning church. I work at Sydney Missionary & Bible College – since I needed to be onsite for some work this week, I took the opportunity to sneak into the empty Principal’s office and record a sermon in here. Probably won’t have the chance to do this again. Our new principal starts in a few months, so all the shelves normally full of excellent books are empty, so I though I should bring some things from home to help that look a bit more friendly. My books … What’s a Psalm like this doing in a time like ours? There are a few things that you might have felt a bit odd about as we read through the Psalm Like verse 10: All the nations surrounded me,     but in the name of the Lord I cut them down. Now that’s not the usual advice you hear about living as a Christian; you might want to try and apply that somehow to social distancing, but that would be a really bad application, so I’d strongly encourage you – don’t do any cutting down this week, please. But there might have been some other parts that just didn’t feel right to you at the moment. Here’s verse 27: The Lord is God,     and he has made his light shine on us. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession     up[c] to the horns of the altar. This year, this month, feels like exactly the wrong time to be talking about making a big crowd to sing and dance our way up the steps at church, doesn’t it. But I’m hoping that as we hear the heart of what this Psalm is on about & how its story echoes across the bible, it tells us just what we need to hear for this week & this year ahead. Sometimes you have to really go thinking and digging and bible-flipping to work out just what a part of the bible is on about. But the Psalmist is pretty keen to make sure we don’t miss it Verses 1-4 1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;     his love endures forever. 2 Let Israel say:     “His love endures forever.” 3 Let the house of Aaron say:     “His love endures forever.” 4 Let those who fear the Lord say:     “His love endures forever.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the Psalm might have something to do with “His love endures forever.” Controversial, I know. This whole Psalm comes back to this one big theme – God’s faithful love is forever. Now that means that God’s love lasts forever – it doesn’t run out - but it means more than that. Have a listen to all the different situations going on in the Psalm. Verse 5 – I was really under pressure, but the Lord changed my situation. Verses 10-13 – I was surrounded by enemies from other nations coming to fight me; I nearly lost; but with the Lord’s help, I won. Verses 15-16 – The Lord has done wonderful things to help his people. Verse 18 – The Lord put me through an incredibly tough time to learn a hard lesson; the only good thing I can say is that he didn’t let me die. Verses 19-20 – I needed help from the Lord, he gave it & now I’m heading in to the city of God’s people to tell everyone about it. Verse 25 – We are in desperate need of help and the Lord hasn’t helped yet – we’re begging him to help. Verse 27 – The Lord has been kind to us, we’re going up to the temple to rejoice and praise him. The Psalmist is saying that in all of these moments, whether they have a clear victory at the end or not – God’s faithful love is forever. God’s faithful love is real and true when things are good & God is obviously being kind God’s faithful love is real and true when things are bad, and when God comes and sorts out our problems. God’s faithful love is real and true when God is the one making things hard & rebuking us God’s faithful love is real and true when things are really bad and we don’t know whether it’s going to end well or not. Will God save? Yes, absolutely, the Psalm keeps promising that. Does the Psalm promise a timeframe? Or an exact answer to what God will do in every situation? No, it doesn’t. Instead, it says that God’s faithful love is true all the time – not just in the moments of victory, but all the way through the story. Verses 6-7 – The Lord is with us & for us – all the time. That all sounds good, but where’s the proof? If we had to point to one thing to say – yes, God’s faithful love is actually real – where would we look? We’d go looking through verse 22 & 26. Go looking for the cornerstone that God has set up; go looking for ‘one who comes in the name of the Lord’. God has a pattern of working through people who seem rejected or weak, and using them to achieve his plans. But where’s THE place that’s been true? Ephesians 2:13: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And verse 19 onwards: Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. Jesus is the cornerstone God has set up – rejected by human leaders, but used by God as the basis for his whole plan to make a new people for himself & remake a new creation. Jesus is where we see God's love on display. God become human - incarnate, God who is with us - Immanuel. Jesus on the cross, loving us as his enemies, while we were still sinners, taking our place. With us and for us at the very worst of times. And Jesus in the resurrection, bringing us into new life, experiencing God's love in full relationship as his people. The empty tomb tells us God's love will take us past the grave, past a defeated, powerless death to healing and wholeness and glory. God’s love is real, but is it really for us? The Psalm opens calling to Israel, and to Aaron’s family – the Jewish priestly line. The Psalmist tells us about God's people fighting the nations & cutting them down. What's changed? Jesus isn’t just where we can see God’s love; Jesus is also how these promises for God's Old Covenant people become our promises today. Through the cross, Jesus breaks down the division between Jew & Gentile – see Ephesians 2:14-16 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. Those of us who trust in Jesus, who follow him, we find ourselves in Jesus. His death covers us - it's for us, for me, for you. His resurrection makes a new covenant and a new people - that's our covenant, we are this new people. In Jesus, and only in Jesus, God's faithful, forever love becomes real for us. Because of Jesus, God's love is for us, forever, all the time, in all situations. If we trust in Jesus, if we follow him - we can claim this psalm as ours. In Jesus, we can claim God's presence as ours, God’s promises as ours, God’s love as ours. What does that mean for us right now? We’ve entered a global season of upheaval, uncertainty, fear and grief. Most of us have had our routines erased; Some of us have seen our work disappear, others of us have had demands on us double or triple (I’m in this camp). What might knowing and trusting God’s faithful love look like? Here are a few suggestions. Lots of us have been learning how to take time to wash our hands lately. Our daughter, Emily – she’s two – she’s gotten right into this. Loves talking through all the steps for washing her hands. We’ve learnt to really let our hands soak in the soapy foam, and make sure we rub it everywhere. I think we need to get in the habit of having all parts of our lives really soak in the reality of God's faithful love, for us, in all situations. In Jesus, it’s real. Whatever you’re doing, or about to do, whatever activity or non-activity you’re up to – let this sit with you & soak in - God’s faithful love is always for us, for me. Maybe this week, each time you wash your hands – add a few seconds to whatever song you sing while you do it & say to yourself – God’s faithful love is always for me. We don’t just wash our hands so they’re clean, we wash them so we can use them. If we know God’s love as his people, then we live it out. So – Eph 4:1-2 … I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. And Eph 5:1-2 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Love each other. We soak in God's love, and we start living it out to each other. This year, we’re going to have a whole lot of unusual ways we can love each other, as well as some usual ones. How can we love each other in our church community and in our wider Christian communities in Sydney? How you can love God’s global church, including Christians you've never met? As we try and think about how we can give practical shape to our love for each other, Ephesians 4 (7-16) would remind us that we each have different skills and opportunities to serve each other and each have our part to play. This week, you could read through some of Ephesians 4 & 5 and hear Paul’s advice about lives of love. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, God's love for us in Jesus gives us hope in our new life - a life beyond a death without sting and beyond a grave without victory, hope in new creation, in eternity. God’s love is real now, but it doesn't mean we'll always experience God's salvation now in the way we'd like. We can always be praying to him, knowing that, whatever his response looks like, it will be in love. When we do experience God's saving work now, we can rejoice, we can praise him. Those experiences give us a taste of the full salvation we're looking forward to one day. When we don't experience that now, other psalms can teach us to keep praying in lament – where we call out to God to tell him what is deeply wrong right now and where we are honest with God about how we feel about what he is and isn’t doing. This is a great time to be honest with God – bringing everything to him, including the ways we are disappointed or angry with him. The Psalms show us we can talk freely to him. As people in Jesus, we know that God, in his love, won't leave things wrong forever. This week, you’ll probably have opportunities to pray, to praise and to lament. If an example of praying lament would help you, I’ll share a link to one that was written for Good Friday this year. God's faithful love is forever – it’s true all the time in all situations. We see it in Jesus death & in his glorious resurrection. In Jesus, God's faithful, forever love is true for us. This week, we can soak in it; we can live it out; and we can pray, rejoice and lament, as we wait for God's love to make all things new in Christ. Pray Suggestions for the week ahead: God’s faithful love is always for us. As we try to let that soak in this week, you might want to re-read Psalm 118 in the NLT version – it’s a nice translation. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+118&version=NLT Sometime this week, you could read Ephesians 4:1-5:20 (NIV) to hear some of Paul’s advice to the Ephesians for living lives of love together. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+4%3A1-5%3A20&version=NIV An example of praying a lament in our current season – this was written for Good Friday by Louisa, an SMBC student I know. http://www.fixinghereyes.org/single-post/2020/04/10/An-invitation-to-lament-this-Good-Friday