Give Thanks to the Lord #1

Whatever else is happening, no matter how I have stumbled, I can trust in Him because His lovingkindness is everlasting.

It's beautiful, isn't it? This is a wonderful God to know. We are greatly privileged to know this God in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello and welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm Bill Wright, and today as we continue with a series titled A Christ-Filled Thanksgiving, we'll see that although life circumstances can sometimes make it hard to trust God, we can know with absolute certainty that He will never fail us as we simply place our trust in His Word and His everlasting faithfulness. So have your Bible open and let's join our teacher right now for part one of his message titled Give Thanks to the Lord on the Truth Pulpit. We have the privilege of turning to Psalm 118, and I'd invite you to turn there.

Psalm 118, the psalm is precious to us because of what it tells us about our God. It honors God for His loyal love. The disciple of Christ, the true saint, understands something about the loyal love of God. God is not simply a lawgiver. God is the God of our salvation. God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in loyal love to His people, He sent Christ into the world in order to be the propitiation for our sins. That is a God of great and loyal love. And what this psalm does is it recognizes that the national deliverances that Israel experienced were not something that was accomplished by man. It was something that God accomplished on their behalf. It's a great celebration of the loyal love of God. And what I want to do is kind of help you understand that this is the nature of the God that you know, the God who is your Lord, if you are in Christ.

And there's an aspect of this that I want to particularly bring out. And so I want to take you to 1 John, chapter 4, just to give us a sense of how great the loyal love of God is from a New Testament perspective. In verse 7, it says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. And in verse 9, it says this, By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This is only tangentially, admittedly only tangentially related to Psalm 118, standing alone, but it's very important for us as New Testament believers to understand this. When we talk about the love of God, the concept of the love of God in your mind should always be inextricably linked to the cross of Jesus Christ, because it is at the cross of Christ where God supremely manifested His love for sinners, where He supremely manifested His love for His people. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. And the fact that Jesus Christ was God Himself, that God Himself took on human flesh, that God Himself went to the cross, that God Himself at the cross bore the wrath of God against sinners, unworthy, undeserving, ungrateful sinners. Christ voluntarily laid down His life in order to be that substitutionary sacrifice for His people, shedding His own precious blood that His people might be saved.

And when you think about that with any depth at all, you understand that that is the supreme statement of the love of God, and it cannot be refuted that God is a God of love when He loved sinners just like that. And so when we go to Christ and we are conscious of our sins, and as it were in a mental understanding, we see His bleeding hands and His bleeding wounds, that that was the price of our salvation, that it was at the cross that Christ shed His precious blood, that that is where our redemption was accomplished. We see what it cost Christ in physical suffering. Even more, we see what it cost Him in spiritual suffering as He bore eternal wrath in His body, in the perfection of who He is. Whatever that was like, He endured alienation from the Father that He had always had perfect fellowship with, so much so that He cries out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? Beloved, understand that there is a sense in which that's a cry of supreme love because it was a supreme sacrifice that He was suffering like that for you and me at the cross. And I'm quite certain that we take that far too much for granted.

We're far too familiar with that truth, if we can think about that and not be moved in our heart as a response to it, and to understand that it is at the cross that the love of God has been manifested. And in your times of sorrow, in your times of suffering, those times where in your weakness you're questioning, God, does God really love me, and why is this happening, and why do I suffer so, and what's going to happen to me, and all of your thought processes start to sink down upon you and pull you down like quicksand. It's hard to get out of that, isn't it, when you start going into that.

I know by direct personal experience. I'm prone to that. I'm prone to that kind of discouragement. And I have to battle it.

I have to fight it. And the way that you overcome that is consistently going back to the cross again and again and again. If you have an angry, frustrated spirit, if you're discouraged about things in your life, and you're discontent with the providence of God in your life, in your marriage, in your family, in your church, or in your job, or whatever it might be, beloved, you need to come back to the love of Christ as it's expressed at the cross. You have forgotten, if that has become the prevailing state of your mind, you have forgotten the source and the fountain of your salvation and how wonderfully saved you are and how wonderfully God has loved you in Christ. And we all need to repent of our ingratitude and our thanklessness and our grumbling, complaining spirits. We all need to repent of that in light of the cross, in light of the love of Christ. Because if that's central to our thinking, the only thing that we can respond to to that is to look at that and say, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

Right? And that's where Psalm 118 takes us in this Old Testament sense. And so we've got the cross of Christ echoing in our mind as we consider this great expression of gratitude in Psalm 118 that we're going to look at now. This psalm, as I said, honors the loyal love of God, and we see that as the primary theme in the opening and closing verses. Look at verse one with me as we kind of do a helicopter view of the psalm before we land on the pad and go through it rather quickly. Psalm 118, verse one, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And then the psalm closes on exactly that same theme with the exact same words.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting. And as in so many psalms, that structure, that envelope structure, or you could say that bookend structure, it starts at the bookend on the left and ends at the bookend on the right. Everything on the shelf of the library in between those two bookends is telling us why we should give thanks to the Lord.

It's reinforcing that sense of gratitude that he wants to express. And so this psalm, as the climax of the Egyptian Hallel, is honoring God for his everlasting, loyal love. And we see textual clues for how these psalms are linked together.

Psalm 117, the shortest psalm. And look at how it ends in verse two. It says, for his loving kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord is everlasting.

Praise the Lord. And then verse one picks up that theme of loving kindness right away, and it's repeated multiple times through the first four verses. And that gives us a sense, as we go through this text, there are going to be multiple instances of repetition of key terms that you find as you go through this psalm. And this is the psalmist's way of saying, this is what I really want you to see. Look at the emphasis, look at the repetition, hear the echo of the terms resounding throughout the text, and you have a sense of the reverberation that he wants to be going on in your heart. And all of that, like a good stimulating pacemaker, stimulating your heart to beat, and to beat not with physical blood, but to beat with spiritual gratitude and thanksgiving to the Lord, because he is so good to us. And so look for that repetition as we go along.

I'll try to point it out along the way. There's another striking feature about this psalm, and it is the use of God's name, the use of God's name. The name for God, the proper name for God, Yahweh, which in most of your English texts is expressed in the capital letters L-O-R-D, Lord. That's the Hebrew, it's the Hebrew term pronounced Yahweh. That name for God occurs 28 times in these 29 verses.

That is the supreme repetition going on. And that reinforces the theme of the nature of God, the loving kindness of God, because that name Yahweh tells us it's an indication that he is Israel's covenant keeping God. In other words, God keeps his promises. In other words, God is faithful to his people. In other words, God does what he says, and he can be counted upon to do what he says and to be faithful to his people in the end. God is always faithful.

His loving kindness, which means his loyal love, is everlasting and he's faithful to keep his promises. And God brings this word to us here not to condemn us but to encourage us, to help us, to strengthen us by calling to mind his own character in our believing hearts that we would rest in him as he would want us to do as we would find the spiritual rest that is promised to us in Christ. So let's look first of all at this first section, the first four verses of this. We could call this section, it's a call to worship for timeless love. It's a call to worship for God's timeless love.

And we will have a total of three points here. And the first point is this, it's a call to worship for God's timeless love. It transcends time. It transcends circumstances. It is with us always. He is with us always, even to the end of the age. So in verse 1 we see it again, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his loving kindness is everlasting. Oh let Israel say his loving kindness is everlasting. Oh let the house of Aaron say his loving kindness is everlasting. Oh let those who fear the Lord say his loving kindness is everlasting.

There's that repetition that I was pointing out to you from the start. Four times in the first four verses this theme is established for the rest of the psalm, God's loving kindness is everlasting to his people. And that means that we can believe that, we can rest in it, we are to trust in it. And he sends the command out to different aspects of the nation. We see a general call to Israel. We see a call to the priestly line of Aaron. And we see an encompassing call to all of those who fear the Lord to remember this, have this central fundamental fact in the cornerstone of your worldview, the loving kindness of God is everlasting. The loving kindness of God is everlasting. Oh let Truth Community Church say his loving kindness is everlasting. That's the embracing sense in which this psalm opens up to us.

It's interesting to me and just to see how scripture has come to us and how we have received it from those that transmitted it to us over the course of the centuries. Look over at Psalm 115 verse 9. You see the same groups being called upon to trust in the Lord. Psalm 115 verse 9, O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.

O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord.

He is their help and their shield. And so you see, and one of the things that I've tried to bring out as I've taught the psalms over the years is that we should not look at these psalms individually, but often they're placed together in context and the psalms were compiled in a way by the compiler, who was likely Ezra the scribe, and compiled in a way to reinforce themes as you're reading through the Psalter. And we see that here Psalm 115, Israel, Aaron, you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. Well there's an echo now in Psalm 118, Israel, Aaron, you who fear the Lord, his loving kindness is everlasting.

And watch this, watch this, because I think it's kind of cool. You take these psalms together, you take the message of the psalms together, and you see the call, trust in the Lord, you who fear the Lord, because his loving kindness is everlasting. This statement of his everlasting loyal love is not simply an assertion of his attribute. This is meant to engender a response of trust in your heart, to inform your faith.

This is like water being poured on a thirsty plant that's shriveled up. Maybe it comes to you like that, your heart is shriveled up in unbelief, in doubt, and in fear, and in temptation, and in falling into sin. Well, let me just encourage you, take God at his word. This is God's word.

Take him at his word. If you know Christ, take him at his word and say, whatever else is happening, no matter how I have stumbled, I can trust in him because his loving kindness is everlasting. It's beautiful, isn't it? This is a wonderful God to know. We are greatly privileged to know this God in our Lord Jesus Christ. And this has an effect even on the way that you pray. You know, I mean, you don't have to do things just exactly like this, but there's a sense in which, if you've been wrestling with an issue for a long time, you've seen the kindness of the Lord shown in your life, but there's something that you've been praying about repeatedly and repeatedly, and nothing seems to change, there seems to be no answer, it's only getting worse, the sorrow's only going deeper, the conflict remains unresolved, and you say, I've been praying about this and praying about this and nothing has changed.

Because of Habakkuk the prophet, I cry out to you, violence! And you do not save. Well, there's this sense in which, beloved, when you take God at his word, trust in the Lord for his loving kindness is everlasting, there's a sense in which you can pray back his own character to him and say, Lord, surely, surely you haven't deceived me as I've trusted in your promises, surely you haven't abandoned me here, because your loving kindness is everlasting. And so, Lord, while you continue to delay an answer and the circumstances continue to go unchanged, Lord, surely this can't mean that you have abandoned me, surely this cannot be a violation of your faithfulness, that's utterly impossible, and so I'm going to renew my trust in you even now based solely on your word, not because there's anything in life to stimulate my trust right at this moment. These circumstances continue to disintegrate around me, Lord, but I rest in your word, I trust you, and surely you'll honor that trust in the end, surely you will, you can't do anything else but that, because that's who you are.

And do you see how that starts to transform the way that you think, the way that you pray, you see how that gives you fresh courage and impetus to move on and entrust the Lord? And haven't you in the past, we're so quick to forget under the pressure of today, we're so quick to forget the 10,000 yesterdays that we have, aren't you quick to forget the way that God has manifested his faithfulness to you in the past? Those of you that have walked with Christ for any period of time, don't you have a thousand battles of faith that God has won on your behalf over the course if you would only stop and remember them? And he is undefeated in your past battles, isn't that true? The Lord is absolutely undefeated in your past trials.

He is absolutely conquered in every one of them. Well, beloved, the trials that you're going through today are just another victory waiting to be accomplished by the hand of our great God on your behalf. And so we live in light of the outcome that we know to be certain. The outcome has to be a manifestation of the loyal love of God if you are in Christ. And God's word informs your response of faith. Your past history of walking with God informs your response of faith today. The certainty of the outcome informs your response of faith today.

So that we go back to these streams and we drink this fresh flowing cool mountain water, this pristine water that refreshes our hearts and we come back to it again and again. It's a call to worship for timeless love. And so God's word, my friends, God's word is calling you to set aside whatever it is that you've been grumbling about, whatever you've been fearful about. Set it aside and respond in worship for his timeless love. Look at the cross. Look at his faithfulness to you in the past.

Look at his promises. And as Psalm 115 says, you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is your help and shield. Now secondly, there's this call to worship in the first four verses. You could say that the next lengthy section of the Psalm becomes an act of worship for God's timely help, an act of worship for God's timely help. So there's been this general call to worship that says his loving kindness is everlasting.

Give thanks to him. And now starting in verse five, the Psalmist responds by giving thanks to the Lord in response to that call to worship that was issued at the start. And what follows is an extended section expressed in the first person now that goes from verse five through verse 21.

And we're going to have to look at this quickly. But what I want you to notice is that starting in verse five, the language changes from the third person, well, the third person, let Israel say, house of Aaron say, let those who fear the Lord say, third person. Second person, give thanks. You give thanks to the Lord for he is good. But now what we have starting in verse five is this extended section expressed in the first person.

He starts speaking in the first person singular. And you see that right from the start in verse five. From my distress, I called upon the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me in a large place.

And so what he's doing here is he's giving an account. His expression of thanks is taking the form of an account of answered prayer that had occurred in the past. The Lord had delivered him from a tight place of stress.

And now he's in an open space of relief. And that experience from this answered prayer in the past, watch this, the experience of past answered prayer gives him lessons that apply as he looks to the future. Verse five, he looks to the past. He said, I called on the Lord and he answered me, past tense. Now beginning in verse six, you see him pivoting to the future. The Lord is for me. I will not fear.

What can man do to me? Verse seven, the Lord is for me among those who help me. Therefore I will look with satisfaction on those who hate me. Having responded to the call to worship, to give thanks, he says, I give thanks for my past answered prayer. Now he says that has implications for the way that I look to the future, how I live going forward.

I understand something significant here. The Lord is with me. Therefore I'm not afraid of what man might do to me. Look at verses eight and nine here. He says, it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. So you see this theme of trust that we saw in Psalm 1 15 being echoed here in Psalm 1 18 again, trust in the Lord, don't trust in what man can do for you. Indeed, God's past faithfulness demands our present trust and friend. We're so thankful that you've spent this time studying God's precious words with us. Now, just before we end our time together, Don, one of the things you talked about today is trusting God to come through for us. Even when the situation looks bleak, and that's something many of us can relate to, especially given the way things are going in our world today.

What do you say about that, Don? Well, my friend, when it comes to these matters of the difficult things in life, in our world or in our personal lives, let me just give you this encouraging thought as we close. You and I, as Christians, we have to look beyond this world for our answers. We look to the person and work of Jesus Christ. He has delivered us from sin and Satan at the cross and he will keep us both through the trials of this life and ultimately through the very valley of death itself. We can rest in his power and love come what may.

And so if you're struggling today, my friend, I encourage you to look up to Christ, look up to that loving Savior who gave himself for you and know that you are in good hands, hands that will keep you completely safe. Well, thank you for that great insight, Don. And friends, you can hear more of Don's teaching anytime at thetruthpulpit.com. While you're there, we'd like to ask you to share with us the name of the city and radio station where you listen to this broadcast. That'll help to keep Don's teaching on the air where you live, and it allows us to continue being good stewards of God's finances. You can tell us where you listen by going to thetruthpulpit.com and then clicking on the contact us menu option. Again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. We're out of time for today, but we'll see you next time right here on The Truth Pulpit.