Good morning, everyone.
So my name is Zeke. I’m a member here at Red Village. I’m on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. So I work with college students at UW Madison seeking to reach the campus with the Gospel, equipping students for a life of sharing the gospel, studying scripture, and pursuing God, both during their time in college and afterwards. I’m excited to bring you God’s Word this morning as we continue in the Book of Psalms this summer.
So for those of you who have been paying attention to Uncle Wes over the past two weeks, you can forget all of the helpful context that he shared because we’re no longer in the Psalms of Ascents. So this week we find ourselves back into the regular flow of the fifth book of the Psalms. The Psalms are A collection of 150 poems or songs written with the goals of praise, lament, prophecy, wisdom, or thanksgiving. They have a variety of authors and intended functions. Psalm 136, the Psalm that we will be spending time in today is one that was intended to be used for corporate worship.
So this psalm is a very interesting one because it is by far the most repetitive chapter in the entire Bible. As it repeats one line 26 times, once per verse, half the Psalm is just the same line being repeated over and over. When I first read the psalm, about halfway through, I began to skip the repeated lines and just read the interesting parts. And while we may sometimes think that repetition in song and prayer are inherently less spiritual or theological, and that they can be boring or pointless, this refrain is very clearly intentionally put there. And as we know, all Scripture is God breathed and is useful to us.
So therein lies the challenge for us today to press into God’s word and seek him in worship, even where it may be uncomfortable or even boring for us, repetition in song and scripture can help us to hold onto a core truth, meditate on that truth, and impress that truth deeper into our souls. The repetition in this psalm has grown so much on me as I have been studying it, and I hope the same can be true for you all this morning. All right, now hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen, because I’m going to kick things off a little bit differently than normal. As Christians, we know that we can worship God in more ways than just singing. We do so in prayer, repentance, and especially in our actions and how we live our lives.
But one of the ways that we do that every Sunday morning is through our corporate scripture reading. This psalm was intended to be used in the same type of setting the priest or choral Leader would call out a verse and the congregation would respond with the refrain. So to help us engage with this repeated line, we are first going to worship with this psalm the way that it was intended. I want you to close your Bibles and I won’t have the words on the screen. They didn’t have projectors back in Jerusalem back then.
I want you to focus on each of the lines that I say, and as a congregation, after each line, you will all respond. For his steadfast love endures forever. Try and have intentionality each time you say, for his steadfast love endures forever. And in the words of Rob, try and have some pep in it. Let’s not drag people.
Keep it energetic. You’ll be saying, for his steadfast Love endures forever 26 times, and although it may be difficult, I challenge you to mean it each and every time. I will pray once we finish and after that you can sit back down. But now can I have you all, please rise if you are able.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods.
Give thanks to the Lord of Lords.
To him alone does great wonders.
To him who by understanding made the heavens to him who spread out the earth above the waters, to him who made the great light, The sun to rule over the day, the moon and stars to rule over the night.
To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt and brought Israel out from among them. For his steadfast love endures forever with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. For his steadfast love endures forever. To him who divided the Red Sea in two and made Israel pass through the midst of it, but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea.
To him who led his people through the wilderness, to him who struck down great kings and killed mighty kings, Sihon, king of the Amorites and Og, king of Bashan, and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to Israel, his servant.
It is he who remembered us in our low estate and rescued us from our foes.
He who gives food to all flesh.
Give thanks to the God of Heaven, God of gods and Lord of Lords. We give thanks to you for your steadfast love throughout all our lives. We praise you for all the ways you have loved us and all the ways that you continue to show your steadfast love to us. Please give me words to speak this morning. Help us all to lean into this psalm this morning and learn to see more of your steadfast love in our lives.
Amen. You may be seated.
So in the non refrained lines, the lines that I read in our psalm, we get to see the story of Israel played out. That story is used as the call demanding the response for his steadfast love endures forever, as you all now know well. So let’s start by briefly working through that story so we can see what all this has in common. So in verses one through three we see the call to give thanks to the Lord for He is good, to give thanks to the God of Gods, and to give thanks to the Lord of Lords. So we begin the psalm with a titling of God and by declaring him to be above all other gods, idols and spiritual beings, and a declaration of God is above all earthly powers.
But first and foremost, the thing the psalmist found most fitting to have as the first attribute of God to give thanks for is that he, the Lord, is good. These verses set the frame for our psalm, with each line starting with Give thanks to followed by a way to describe God. And although the preceding lines do not contain the give thanks, it is implied through the rest of the psalm. All of the phrases following thus have the implied give thanks to him who. And in the beginning of this psalm of thanks, we declare that God is good and that he is above all others.
Then, then begins the next section. In verses 4 through 9, we praise God for His creation. A summary of the creation story is given. And the things described are the things that are great wonders that are incomparable in their power. Before anything existed, God, who always had been, set things into existence.
He performed great wonders. Creation of the heavens, creation of the earth and the oceans, creation of the sun, moon and stars. These are glorious things, things that are so complex and wonderful and beautiful. But for all time and even today, instead of praising God for the great wonders of his creation, people have praised the creation itself. Even the first humans on earth lived in the perfect, undistorted creation.
But they desired to be like God instead of obey Him. And their actions caused the distortion of God’s perfect creation.
From the magnificent work of creation, we jump to the work of deliverance that became the act of God that defined who Israel was as God’s chosen people. The psalmist declares God worthy of praise for the giving of The Passover, the 10th plague that was used as the final blow to deliver Israel. This was not subtle nor indirect, but with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, Israel was delivered, saved from Pharaoh and their oppression. This is the phrase that God continually tells his people to remember. Remember that I am the God who brought you out of Egypt.
As he continued to call them back to him. Because time after time they forgot who God was and what he had done for them. Israel fell in remembering this so many times. And within those times there were two separate times when two separate times in Israel when the strong hand of the Lord’s deliverance was forgotten and golden calves were forged. And it was declared as Israel looked upon their golden idols that these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt.
In verses 13 through 15, we see the further deliverance of Israel. Israel was leaving the land of Egypt where they had been enslaved. God had done many mighty works to show he was the one true God and free them from slavery. And now as they approached the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his army were in pursuit of them with their chariots. The people cried out and they wished they had been left as slaves in Egypt, immediately doubting God’s power once again.
But God delivered them by parting the sea so they could walk through on dry ground. And as the waves crashed over the army of Pharaoh, Pharaoh was utterly destroyed. In verse 16, the Psalmist describes the wandering in the wilderness as the people of Israel were going towards the promised land. This is another time of God’s great faithfulness. He provided water, food and protection and deliverance from their enemies.
He provided structure, law and justice for the people during that time. But the only reason they were in the wilderness for such a long time was because of their rejection of God’s plan to take the promised land. They didn’t trust that God would help them to destroy the people of the land. And yet God led his people and provided for them and delivered them. In verses 17 through 20, the Psalmist Give thanks to the Lord for striking down many kings.
Og and Sihon were two kings who opposed Israel. That God used Israel to completely destroy the destruction was so great and the victory so unfathomable that it was clear evidence of God. So much so that when the spies entered Jericho, the people of the land were melting with fear. And because of how God had destroyed Og and Sihon. And as Israel continues onward, God continues to destroy great kings through Israel.
Joshua, the Judges and King David all led God’s people and destroyed the enemies. Destroyed the enemies of the Lord through the power and deliverance of God. But once again they failed and attributed the success to themselves. Many kings in Israel rose and tried to claim the deliverance as from them or from their idols. They led God’s people astray to worship other gods and sought to defeat their enemies in their own power.
In verses 21 and 22 one of the many great promises God gave his people was to give them the promised land. God promised it to Abraham, and 400 years later, Joshua led the people of Israel into the land that God had promised them. It was a land flowing with milk and honey, where God promised to bless them and provide abundantly in the land so there would be no need unmet as long as they obeyed Him. This was such a good promise. But once again Israel did not obey and went their own way.
They followed idols and acted wickedly, and the bountiful land was struck with plague and locust. And ultimately this rejection of obeying God in the land he promised them came to an end with the destruction of Israel by Assyria and Jude, with the destruction of Israel by Assyria and Judah by Babylon.
And this led to their captive exile in foreign lands.
In these last few lines 23 through 25, it’s very comforting. We give thanks to the way that God remembers us when we are low and beat down, the ways that he rescues us and the ways that he gives us what we need to be sustained. I’m going to wait on verse 26 for now, but really what we see in this psalm is a narrative of the continued redemption of Israel, creation, deliverance from Egypt, defeating nations, giving them the promised land. This then begs the question, why would the psalmist interject the refrain after all 26 lines of this narrative of Israel? I feel like our minds often look at passages like this and do one of two things.
We either focus in exclusively on the non repeated lines and mostly ignore the repeated line, or if we do look at that refrain of for his steadfast love endures forever, we may just chalk it up as true. Without thinking about the significance of the line, what it has to do with the narrative lines, and why it was chosen to be said in this case after every single line in the narrative. So let’s dive into that line for his steadfast love endures forever. One of the things that is interesting about this psalm is how many different ways the refrain is translated in the esv, our text for today it’s for his steadfast love endures forever in others for his mercy endures forever in some his faithful love endures forever, and yet others for his loving kindness endures forever. This is one of those interesting words where we don’t have an exact word in English to match the Hebrew.
And it’s not so much that we don’t have the word, more so we don’t have a word that can fully encompass the word. The Hebrew phrase declares that God’s love, kindness, and mercy is in covenant with us is in covenant with us with eternal faithfulness and loyalty forever. It’s not the same word for love that is typically translated to love, but love is part of it. I do like the ESV translation of love because I don’t think mercy encapsulates the desire and passion which God has in his redemption and steadfast love. So that’s what I’m going to continue to use.
But just so you know, it’s much deeper than just love. Initially I thought that it was interesting that this was what was picked as the emphasized line. There are so many great wonders of God described in the passage, and yet God’s love for us is the one most declared and the primary thing that we are to give thanks for.
When I came into college, I felt like I had little worth. I was a Christian but was trying to earn my own value. I was feeling burned out as I tried to make something of myself on my own. Most of all, I lacked love. I felt like I needed to earn the love of others, and I was failing.
But God’s steadfast love endures forever. God provided me with a community who loved me in a way I hadn’t experienced before from my peers. I’d never felt such belonging before in any community. God also met me in scripture. I encountered Jesus in a deeper way through the Bible study that I was in than I had ever before.
God made his steadfast love known to me.
Someone mentored me for the first time, something I had pursued before but now finally had someone guiding me and supporting me in my walk with God. Through that, God showed His love to me in a way that totally transformed the trajectory of my life. It was through those events that God made His steadfast love known to me. But it wasn’t the events that changed me. Although they may often get credit.
The thing that is true above all else is that God’s steadfast love was made known to me in a deeper way than ever before.
So let’s go back and look at how each of these events of the narrative demonstrate God’s steadfast love to his people. In the creation of the world, God made everything good and created us and called us very good. God gave us food to eat and his creation to enjoy. Even today in the broken world that we live in, one of the main types of vacations people go on is to see something beautiful in creation. Creation is beautiful and A demonstration of God’s love towards us in its beauty.
Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The majesty of God’s creation shows his love towards us, but it is also a demonstration of his love towards us in the way that his creation sustains and provides for us. The curse makes us toil, but even so rain falls on men, and the earth provides food for us to eat. There are so many facets to hope that God blesses us with his creation. But in all of them his steadfast love is revealed to us.
In the deliverance from Egypt, God freed His people and did so with great strength and power. Out of love for his people and to reveal to them Himself. He redeemed them and led them so they would know his love and the great lengths God would go to to deliver his people in God’s dividing of the Red Sea, destruction of the Egyptian army, and leading his people in the wilderness. God was continuing to show his love to his people through his actions. Through these events, his steadfast love and faithfulness was continually made known to them.
Through this, through his choosing of Israel to be his people, he demonstrated his love for them. His love for his people continued to be made known as he led them in battle and defeated their enemies. Israel was feared and it became known that their God was the God of the heavens above and the earth beneath, and that he would bring them victory in battle. God protected and sustained his people and through them wiped out wicked nations in battle. God brought victory to his people.
He continued to redeem them by raising up judges and kings to lead them and defeat their enemies and make the love and faithfulness of the Lord known in Israel. One of the great ways God made His love known was through the giving of the promised land. God worked through Abraham and gave him a promise to give his descendants a land that would be theirs forever. He had an inheritance for them that was so bountiful and fruitful, Israel would lack nothing as they rested in the land that God would provide for them. What a show of love that endures forever, the gift of an eternal inheritance and rest with God.
So really this psalm isn’t about the narrative of Israel, but about the way that the narrative of Israel and God’s continued redemption through the history of mankind demonstrates God’s love. The psalm isn’t about thanking God for the events. It’s identifying God as the Redeemer in those events and thanking him for his steadfast love. This is true for our lives and in the lives of other Christians.
So I love missionary stories. So as an example of the events of our lives being framed around the steadfast love of the Lord, I will share one. In 1788, Adoniram Judson was born in Massachusetts by the steadfast love of the Lord. His parents were Christians who raised him and loved him well. But Judson placed himself at the center, rejecting God and the Bible and he became a deist.
But in God’s steadfast love, God continued to pursue Judson and in 1808 Judson became a Christian and later attended a seminary. God grew Judson’s love for God and for lost people over that time. And a few years later he formed the very first mission sending organization in America and in 1812 became the second ever American missionary to go into the world to preach the Gospel. This is an outpouring of God’s steadfast love for the world that he equipped and sent Judson to bring the gospel to the lost and laid the foundation for countless other missionaries to be sent into the world. Adoniram Judson and his wife Anne spent their lives knowing the people in Burma as they professed the steadfast love of the Lord to the Buddhist Burmese.
Judson worked to master their language so he could translate the Bible into their tongue that many more would know the love of the Lord through the Scriptures. God continued to reveal his steadfast love to the Judsons as they were sustained in their work emotionally, spiritually and physically, despite not seeing a single person come to follow Jesus for six years. But then they baptized their first convert to Christ, someone recognizing Christ’s steadfast love. More followed. But the Judsons and New Christians faced much persecution and hardship.
Times of low estate, like verse 23 describes, came and hit very hard. A war between the Burmese and English began in 1824 and Adoniram was arrested under suspicion of being a spy. Adoniram was treated horrifically and Anne did everything in her power to keep him alive and try and have him be Released during his imprisonment, Anne gave birth to their first daughter, Maria. After close to two years in prison, Judson was released. But his joy was quickly crushed when his wife Anne and his only child Maria were ravaged by sickness and both died.
An author describing this time in Judson’s life wrote, death seemed to be all about Adoniram. For a period of months, he was plunged into despair and depression. He would flee to the jungle and live the life of a hermit for some time, questioning himself, his calling, even his faith. However, God’s power and love did not fail him. He would emerge from the valley of the shadow of death in the strength of of his good shepherd.
When Judson was faced with great grief and despair, God remembered him in his low estate and once again revealed his steadfast love to him. Judson continued in missions through the rest of his life, finishing his translation of the Bible into the Burmese language. Judson’s life was a series of many events, all of which were marked with the revealing of the steadfast love of the Lord both to Judson and to those around him. So this psalm is a framework for how we should look at the steadfast love of the Lord in our lives in a broad sense. But the psalm goes even deeper than that in a way that helps us to see his steadfast love as it endures forever.
For the steadfast love of the Lord which endures forever is most pronounced in the gospel. And the themes of this psalm perfectly describe the events of our lives. When we respond to God’s love towards us in creation, all is made perfect and we were made. That’s the first theme. But because of our rejection of God, we needed to be rescued with a strong and outstretched arm, not from the grasp of slavery in Egypt, but from the grasp that sin and death had on our souls.
But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, sent his son Jesus to come into the world. Jesus came and revealed that his steadfast love endures forever by loving the world, and most of all by laying down his life as a sacrifice to cover the punishment that we deserve for our sins and for our rejection of God, that all who believe in him may be made alive together with Christ. And as Pharaoh and his army were destroyed, so sin and death have been conquered in Christ. Then, as Israel continued in their pursuit of God, God worked through them to do mighty works by defeating the wicked nations and continuing to deliver Israel. And so God calls us, we who have had his steadfast love which endures forever.
We who have had that made known to us, we who are created in Christ for good works to do the good works which God prepared in advance for us to do an outpouring of our praise to God for His steadfast love should be to show that love to others in our witness, like we saw in Adoniram Judson. But it doesn’t end there. God gave Israel a promise of a beautiful inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey where they could rest and be with God forever. We also, who are in Christ, have a delightful inheritance, a heritage to his good and faithful servants, that we may be seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. In short, through the steadfast love of God, we are created and known, we are redeemed and rescued.
Mighty works are done in our lives, like John 14 describes, and we are given an eternal heritage in heaven. And finally on to verse 26 give thanks to the God of Heaven for his steadfast love endures forever. All that has been said is why we should give thanks to the God of Heaven for his steadfast love. We should give thanks to the God of Heaven because of our rich history in the way that he has revealed his never ending steadfast love to Israel in the Old Testament. We should give thanks to the God of Heaven because of the way that he has revealed his never ending, steadfast love to us in our own lives.
And most of all, we should give thanks to the God of Heaven because of the way that he has revealed his never ending steadfast love to us in the Gospel. I want to spend the remaining time trying to practically apply this passage to our lives with a warning, petition and a challenge.
First, the warning. When we forget that his steadfast love endures forever, we are most vulnerable to fall into sin and idolatry. As I mentioned, I work with students and it is such a great joy to help students encounter the love of the Lord in the Gospel and to learn to live that out. In that journey we all are presented with challenges and temptation. One of my former students grew up in a Christian home but never really believed any of it and ended up coming to UW Madison where through no intentional actions of his own, he ended up encountering the steadfast love of the Lord.
Through our intervarsity chapter, he grew in the way that he followed Jesus and He continued to learn more of who God is. He and I would meet for discipleship and he shared that he was thinking about dating someone who wasn’t in any way a Christian. She was pursuing him and he was very attracted to her. He and I had a long conversation about it and it ended with him deciding that dating a non Christian with the intention of having no physical boundaries in any way was more appealing than continuing to obey Jesus. He looked and a sexual relationship seemed pleasing in his own eyes, and so he pursued that fully.
What ended up happening was he looked and forgot the steadfast love of the Lord in his life. He forgot how valuable it is and how important it was, and chose earthly pleasures instead. Israel did the same thing time after time, disobeying God, not entering the Promised Land, not obeying God in battle, desiring kings to rule over them, making idols for themselves, all because they forgot the love of God in their lives and in their history. But this warning isn’t just in the extremes of worshiping idols and abandoning your faith. Whenever we sin, we are forgetting that the Lord’s steadfast love endures forever and we are choosing our sin over God.
This may be in us treating going to church or our time in the Bible or prayer as an obligation, or as undesirable but necessary, or in choosing to do something we know is wrong but nobody will know. Often this takes place when we stop putting God in charge of our whole lives. We use our money for our own gain instead of for the benefit of the gospel, and don’t continue to stretch ourselves to give generously, but we rely on ourselves for our own provision. We put our jobs or our families or our entertainment above the call to witness and don’t love our neighbors well. We are forgetting the way God has been faithful to us and how he has provided and how he calls us to live in light of that.
So the warning don’t forget that his steadfast love endures forever.
In light of that warning, the Petition to remember that the steadfast Love of the Lord endures forever in my village group, we spent a month or so having people share their testimonies each week. This not only was a great way for us to get to know and understand one another’s walk with God better, but also served as a reminder to each of us of how God’s steadfast love had been evident in our lives, even in ways that we had forgotten ourselves. It was really encouraging and one means of remembering. Remembering is one of the key things that God told Israel to do. Remember that he is the God who brought you out of Egypt.
That’s the purpose of this psalm, to remember the love of the Lord in their history and lives. So I petition you to remember how the steadfast love of the Lord has been evident in your own life. How has God been faithful to you and loved you? If you aren’t yet a Christian, I want you to think about this. God is in pursuit of you and wants you to be transformed by the Gospel.
Look at your life and see how his love has been evident in your life in small and large ways, especially in the ways that have brought you here today to be listening to this message. I’m not expecting you all to start shouting for his steadfast love endures forever every time something good happens or God shows up in your life, though I’m also not opposed to that. But but we should all seek to recognize more of that in our lives. And third, the challenge Live in response to the steadfast love of the Lord in a way that many more experience it and will be with him forever. I shared how I had encountered the love of the Lord in my life when I came to campus and part of the impact it had on me was to bring me to love others.
I began to invite people over for dinner all the time and show them love by feeding them, spending time with them, and having deep conversations. It started with me inviting over my friends, but God continued to challenge me and I began to invite people outside of my community and eventually more and more non Christians began to come and experience the steadfast love of Jesus through free food and Christian community. It wasn’t through intention of my own or anything of my own, but it was Jesus showing me more of who he is and me finding a great joy in the witness that I had been called to. Showing the steadfast love of the Lord to others helped me to grow in my own understanding of the steadfast love of Christ in my life. When one of my students grew up in a Christian home and has been surrounded by Christians his whole life, when I first began to try and bring him into evangelism, he resisted and declared that it wasn’t helpful and wasn’t worth it.
He had no love for the lost people on our campus and didn’t think it would do anything if he tried to reach them with the Gospel. Nonetheless, he did end up joining me to witness to people on campus. He was terrified at first, but eventually he worked up the courage to speak to someone when he bid the person farewell. I remember him coming over to me with the biggest smile on his face he had felt such great joy from sharing Jesus with someone who didn’t know him, and it was making him feel so much joy and to see so much more of the steadfast love of Christ. It absolutely changed his life.
It has made him understand and see so much more of the love of Jesus in his own life and has spurred him on to show the love of the Lord to so many other people. So too can you show the love of the Lord to others as a means of remembering it. Bring your community into this. Meet your neighbors, your co workers, spend time with them, know them, and share the love of Jesus with them in Word. And indeed, I’m going to close us with a prayer that’s written based on our psalm today, so pray with me.
We give thanks to the Lord for He is good for your steadfast love endures forever we give thanks to the God of Gods for your steadfast love endures forever we give thanks to the Lord of Lords for your steadfast love endures forever to him who alone does great wonders for your steadfast love endures forever to him who by understanding made all things for your steadfast love endures forever to him who formed each of us in our mother’s wombs for your steadfast love endures forever to him who called Pastor Aaron to witness to Madison for your steadfast love endures forever and through him formed Red Village Church for your steadfast love endures forever and brought each and every one of us into this community. For your steadfast love endures forever to him who bore our sin for your steadfast love endures forever and took on the punishment we deserve for your steadfast love endures forever dying on the cross for all who believe for your steadfast love endures forever to him who has extended his grace to us for your steadfast love endures forever and has made us alive together with Christ. For your steadfast love endures forever and defeated sin and death forever. For your steadfast love endures forever to him who leads us with his scriptures for your steadfast love endures forever to him who through us works his commission for your steadfast love endures forever to reach all people with the good news. For your steadfast love endures forever calling us to witness to all people for your steadfast love endures forever in our neighborhoods in Madison and to the ends of the earth.
For your steadfast love endures forever and gives us a promise of eternal life in heaven with Christ. For your steadfast love endures forever. A heritage to all of God’s people, the Church. For your steadfast love endures forever. It is he who remembered us in our low estate.
For your steadfast love endures forever. And rescued us in our weakness. For your steadfast love endures forever. He who gives the provision we need. For your steadfast love endures forever.
We give thanks to the God of Heaven. For your steadfast love endures forever. Amen.