Psalm 136
Let’s give our attention to the
reading of God’s word, Psalm 136, verses one through 26. Hear God’s word with me. Give
thanks to the Lord. For he is good, for his steadfast
love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord
of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him alone
who does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever.
To him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast
love endures forever. To him who spread out the earth
above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him
who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever. The sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever. The moon and the stars
to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who struck down the firstborn
of Egypt, for his steadfast love endures forever. 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, for his steadfast love endures forever, and made
Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love
endures forever. but overthrew Pharaoh and his
host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever.
To him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast
love endures forever. To him who struck down great
kings, for his steadfast love endures forever, and killed mighty
kings, for his steadfast love endures forever. Sihon, the king
of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures forever. and Og
king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures forever, and gave
their land as a heritage, for his steadfast love endures forever,
a heritage to Israel his servant, for his steadfast love endures
forever. It is he who remembered us in
our lowest state, For his steadfast love endures forever. And rescued
us from our foes. For his steadfast love endures
forever. He who gives food to all flesh. For his steadfast love endures
forever. Give thanks to the God of heavens.
For his steadfast love endures forever. Amen. This is the word
of the living God. Well, I think it goes without
saying, it’s maybe a statement to the choir, as it were, y’all
did rehearse tonight, so at least some of y’all in the room are
choir, that we should give thanks to the Lord. That’s one of those,
as a teenager in my era would have said to parents, no duh,
right? That’s just something we know
we should do. But do we give thanks to the
Lord? Maybe we do it at table blessings.
Maybe we do so every fourth Thursday in November, if we’re not too
busy doing Black Friday shopping, which starts on Thanksgiving
Thursday. Maybe we give thanks every day. Maybe we should consider
the pattern of the psalmist, the pattern of the people of
old. We give thanks to God morning and evening. We give thanks to
God personally, privately, with our family, but also corporately
as the church. So giving thanks to the Lord
really ought to be part and parcel of our lives. It ought to be
something that we do every day and often, and maybe even we
do it moment by moment. We give thanks as we recognize
our blessings moment by moment each day. So we should give thanks
to the Lord. But here’s the question. Why
should we give thanks to the Lord? Why give thanks to the
God of gods? Why give thanks to the God of
heavens? Well, there are lots of reasons. We have listed in our bulletin
for Sunday evenings our pattern of prayer, the ACTS, Adoration,
Confession, and what’s the T? thanksgiving, and then supplications. And so as we make our prayers,
and we include each of those elements in our prayers, we ought
to jot down, write down the things for which we are thankful. As
you read your Bible, as you spend time daily with God and your
time with the Lord, maybe you could fill in a journal page
of adoration and confession and thanksgiving and supplication.
And I believe you will begin to see as you read through the
Bible, there’s lots of reasons to thank God. But as you also
recount your day, your week, the blessings God has brought
into your life, you will have this exercise of your mind and
you’ll have reasons to think about why God ought to be thanked. And so adoration and confession
and the T, thanksgiving and supplication, are important. But another way
to think through why we should give thanks to God as you read
through the Bible or live through life, here’s another little anacronym
for you. CAP, like a cap, put on a cap.
The character of God, the actions of God, and the promises of God. And as you read through your
Bible, surely you’ll see things that give reason for adoration
and confession and thanksgiving and supplication, but I think
you’ll see the CAP too, right? The character of God, the actions
of God, and the promises of God. And so why give thanks to God?
There’s lots of reasons, but why give thanks to God more specifically
in Psalm 136. That’s what we want to think
about tonight. Some of you probably have the
old southernism in you of writing a thank you note. Somebody does
something for you, and so what’s a good southern person to do
but write a thank you note? Usually on monogrammed stationeries,
the way it usually rolls. But we say, dear so-and-so, thank
you for fill in the blank. And then we usually give a reason
we’re thankful. What you did for me personally
blessed me this way. Thank you again. And then we
sign our name. Well, that’s how we ought to
give thanks to the Lord, dear Lord, dear Lord of heaven and
earth, dear Lord of salvation, dear Lord, who is creator redeemer. Thank you for all that you’ve
done for your church, for your people, for me. I am personally
blessed. And then maybe a little signature.
We sign our name, your humble servant. That’s, how we write
thank you notes. Maybe that’s how we ought to
think of what the Lord has done and give him thanks. We acknowledge
the Lord, right? We acknowledge him for his gifts
and his graces. And in Psalm 136, We see three
reasons to give thanks. God is deserving of our thanks
because he has done the work of creation, he’s done the work
of redemption, and he’s done the work of sustaining us. So we worship God, we thank God,
we thank him as creator, redeemer, and sustainer. And so that’s
how we want to think tonight of Psalm 136. First of all, let’s
take a peek at the front of the psalm and then at the back of
the psalm. Verses one to three, and then
also verse 26. Give thanks, verse one says,
to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures
forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love
endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever. And then at the very
end of the Psalm, verse 26, give thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever. So there we have several
times the imperative verb, the command to give thanks to God.
And we have various names or titles for God that put on display
his attributes. But we ought to give thanks to
God. Now think about some of the ways
that we are helped in doing that. Think for a moment about our
theology, our theology or the study of God. We look at theology,
the doctrine of God, who he is, the revelation of himself in
the scriptures, the revelation of his wisdom and majesty and
creation. We look at who man is and what
man has done in this world. We look at Jesus and salvation.
We look at the church. We look at all the ins and outs
of salvation. And so theology helps us give
thanks, but also our hymns help us to give thanks. The words
of our hymns. How about our creeds? In fact,
some have suggested that Psalm 136 is almost like a creed. I believe in God, the father
almighty maker of heaven and earth. And then it goes on to
speak of, um, the things that God has done, God the Trinity
has done in this world. So our creeds help, and for sure,
no doubt, our scriptures help us. And so as we give thanks,
we see how our theology and our hymns and our creeds, and most
especially our scripture reading, help us. And so the beginning
and the end of the psalm are our command to give thanks. But let’s look now at the three
reasons for giving thanks, the creator, the Redeemer and the
Sustainer. First of all, the Creator, you
see it in verses four through nine. Now, I’m gonna stop reading
the refrain. That refrain occurs 27 times. And I know some of you are probably
thinking this way. I thought in the good old faithful Reformed
Presbyterian Church, we didn’t sing the same seven words 11
times through. You know, the old 7-11 joke about
praise songs. It’s the same seven words sung
11 times. Well, we have one exception, and it’s Psalm 136. It’s a refrain
repeated 27 times. And so as I read through these
passages, I will not read the refrain, but look at verses four
through nine. To him who alone does great wonders,
who by understanding made the heavens, who spread out the earth
above the waters, He made the great lights, the sun to rule
the day, the moon and stars to rule over the night. On Wednesday evenings, we’ve
now begun a study of Genesis and in the coming weeks we’ll
look at particularly the work of creation in chapters one and
two of Genesis. And we have a special view, I
think, of the world, a special worldview as Christians. We’re
not like others. You know, when you go to the
zoo and you see the little placard on the animal, the wall of the
animal exhibit you’re looking in and, you know, this particular
animal dates back to the whatever Zaweed age and you know, it’s
millions of years old and on and on and all the mountains
over there They’re from this age and you know, it’s a darwinistic
evolutionary view of the world and everything in it We don’t
hold that worldview. We’re christians. We have the
scriptures. We believe that god tells us largely in the historical
narrative of the early chapters of Genesis. How the world was
made, why the world was made, that the world was made, and
maybe not every detail is given about science and botany and
biology and physics and all the rest, but we understand that
the world which did not exist came into existence by the word
of God’s great creative power. And he took what was formless
and void And he formed it and he filled it and he filled it
with mankind and animals who were both told to be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth. But man, who is the crown of
God’s creation, was given the great command to be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth with more and more image bearers
and worshipers of almighty God to work the ground, keep the
ground. to have dominion over the earth and to make this world
prosper for the sake of the great king of kings. And we understand
the fall of man into sin and the curse, which is over creation. But as we look around, particularly
today, after all this rain, we saw the sunshine, that strange
orange ball in the sky, and we saw, we see, even under the curse,
it is still an incredible creation. We remember when the first Americans
landed on the moon, One of them from orbit spoke the words of
Genesis 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth. And so somehow, some way for
many people, some Christians, some not Christians, we still
have a reverence and awe for creation, but especially as God’s
people, we ought to have a special place in our minds and hearts,
our worship and praise, for God being the creator. It shows us
his wisdom, his power, shows us his goodness in making a place
suitable for us to live. We also ought not to lose sight
that God is going to make all things new. And so not only is
God the creator, he is the re-creator. What has been bent and broken
by the fall, he will make new again. And so we praise him for
these things. Well, how about the redeemer?
We see God the Redeemer in verses 10 to 22. Again, I’ll read the verses without
the refrain. To him who struck down the firstborn
of Egypt, he brought Israel out from among them with a strong
hand and an outstretched arm. He divided the Red Sea in two.
He made Israel pass through the midst of it. He overthrew Pharaoh
and his host in the Red Sea. He led the people through the
wilderness. He struck down great kings. He killed mighty kings. Sihon, the king of the Amorites.
Og, the king of Bashan. He gave their land as a heritage,
a heritage to Israel, his servant. And so we have in those verses,
we have God, the Redeemer. And we remember the story of
God’s first exodus when Moses was out keeping the flocks of
his father-in-law Jethro and he saw the burning bush. He went
to it to see what it was. God appeared to him, the great
I Am. He told him, I am going to use
you to redeem my people. I’ve heard their cries. Jacob
had increased in Egypt. The taskmasters had burdened
them with a load they could not bear, and they were in great
distress. And so Moses and Aaron, along with the signs and wonders
God would send to Egypt, rescued God’s people. They were rescued
out of Egypt. They plundered the Egyptians. They took their wealth into the
wilderness. You know, they crossed the sea on dry land. The sea
closed up on Pharaoh and his army who pursued. But God took
care of his people, heard their cries and redeemed them. And
we have to think of the greater Exodus, don’t we? We have to
think of the cross. where a greater one than Moses,
a greater redeemer than Moses came to rescue God’s people from
their cries. They were under the bondage of
Satan. They were under his kingdom of darkness. They were under
his taskmaster. He was their taskmaster, giving
them over to sin and lust. and things which would destroy
them and lead to death. And so as we praise God, as we
give thanks to God for the work of redemption, we do think of
the Exodus. We do think of the cross. But
we also may think of redemption in more localized terms. Maybe
you think about God’s redemption, not just of his people, but of
yourself. You think of your testimony.
You think of God’s grace in your life to redeem you. But maybe
you think of smaller events of salvation. God rescued you from
cancer. God rescued you from the danger
that could have been in an automobile accident. Or God saw you through
a sickness. God saw you through some heartache
or hardship. And so we give thanks to God,
not only for his work as creator, but also redeemer. And then the
last section, his work as sustainer. And you see it in verse 16, just
a glimpse, and then in particular, verses 23 to 25. Verse 16, to
him who led his people through the wilderness, and then skip
down to 23, it is he who remembered us in our lowest state. He rescued
us from our foes. He gives food to all flesh. So think about God as sustainer,
what God creates, he also takes care of. Do you ever think about
all the moving parts in your life? If you lie in bed at night,
maybe just men do this, I don’t know. Maybe you lie in bed at
night and you think about your financial system. Is there going
to be enough money? What if all the bad things that
could happen did happen? Would you have enough to take
care of it all? Is the heat going to go out? Is the car going to
break down? Is the roof going to leak? Are those squirrels
that we see running around the trees, are they going to get
in the attic and build nests and eat through our wiring? You
could lose your mind, couldn’t you? thinking about all the things
that you’ve got to take care of. And can you take care of
them all? Absolutely not. You can be responsible. You can
save. You can prepare. You can replace and repair things.
You can plug up holes where the squirrels won’t get in and all
the rest. And maybe some of you think differently. Maybe the
women in the room think a little bit differently. Is there enough
food in the cupboard? Did I remember to start the dishwasher? Did
I remember to kiss the children goodnight? On and on it could
go. And what we have to remember
is we can’t take care of it, but God can. He can juggle everything
and do it perfectly. There are, with God, no dropped
balls, no missed appointments, no moving parts that are unsupervised. He governs and He preserves all
His creatures. and all their actions. We can
never juggle all these things, or even prevent a disaster, but
God can. And so you think about verse
16 in particular, maybe you’re wondering why in the middle of
the little section on redemption, verse 16, has to do with God
sustaining. But it says, to him who led his
people through the wilderness. Remember, 40 years in the wilderness,
where was the closest shoe store? There wasn’t one. Where was the
closest place they could go and replace their tunic? There wasn’t
one. Where was the nearest 7-Eleven
or Aldi’s or Food Lion or Super Walmart or BJ’s or Trader Joe’s
or Harris Teeter or coming soon Publix? Where was that? It wasn’t
there. And how did they sustain themselves? Well, it was God. And in Deuteronomy
29, chapter 5, we remember God saying, in the wilderness, your
shoes did not wear out. In the wilderness, your clothes
did not wear off of your backs. And maybe some of you have been
through lean times. Maybe you are in the midst of
lean times. And you think that as you prayed
at night before you went to bed, that old air conditioning unit
on the house that was told you by your technician, it’s not
going to make it another summer. And you prayed, Lord, I need
it to make it another summer. And it did. Or maybe the shoes
made it through a stretch of unemployment where you needed
not to spend money on such things, but just on the basics. And on
and on the example could go. That’s how God cares for his
people. We pray, give us this day our daily bread. And in making
that prayer, we remember that God gave manna from heaven. God
gave quail. God gave water from the rock.
And later on in Israel’s history, when they were a faithless people
forgetting who God was and what he had done for them, their act
of faithlessness is characterized in this question. Can God spread
a table in the wilderness? And he absolutely can. And I
would imagine we could go through the room and each of you could
speak. Maybe life isn’t perfect. Life isn’t as rosy as you’d like
it to be. It’s not all buttoned up and
neat, but you can say person to person, man to man, woman
to woman, child to child, God has indeed taken care of me,
us, his church, and he has blessed us. We had bread from heaven,
quail, we had daily bread, water, no predators, no moths, no destruction
in our tents. Well, what about the refrain?
We’re commanded to give thanks to God. We give thanks for creator,
redeemer, sustainer. But what about this refrain,
this 27 times repeated refrain, his steadfast love, endures forever. Maybe you think in the New Testament,
the most important thing that God can provide is the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think you’d be right. If
somebody asked you what’s the most important tangible in the
New Testament, it’s probably the precious blood of the Lord
Jesus, shed for you, poured out for the sins of many. What might
be the most important thing in the Old Testament? Well, it would
be what’s translated here as the steadfast love of the Lord. This is a special Hebrew word.
You’ve probably heard it said or pronounced before. It’s a
special love word. It’s hesed. It’s God’s forever
favor. It’s God’s committed love. It’s
God’s steadfast love. It’s God’s covenant love. It
is a love from God for his people that lasts from generation to
generation. His love is enduring. You know,
sometimes we play, what is it? We play in grade school. We get
the daisy. He loves me. He loves me not.
We pick off daisies and toss them. He loves me. He loves me
not. What can we say if we pick the petals off the daisies to
God? He loves me. He loves me. He loves me, and
he loves us against all the odds. He loves us against our unfaithfulness,
our sin. He loves us against our failings,
our shortcomings, our broken promises, our disobedience, our
complaining, our faithlessness. He loves us with a committed
forever love and favor that’s steadfast, and it’s rooted in
his covenant. If he promises, he won’t fail. One of the things we say sometimes
in the life of the church The job of the pastor is to prepare
people to make their vows and keep their vows. So when do we
make vows? Well, we make them when we join
the church, we make them when we baptize our children, we make
them when we become elders or deacons, we make them in marriage,
and we make them as ordination as pastors, and maybe there might
be another time or two. And so the job of the minister
is very often to help people make their vows and keep their
vows. And one of the things we must
remember is God does not break his vows. When he gives his word,
his promises are yes and amen and Christ. We will fail each
other. We won’t raise our children as
we ought. We won’t be committed in our marriages as we ought.
We won’t do the job as shepherds and deacons as we ought and so
on. But God’s committed love never fails. And
it’s repeated here 26 times. And it’s repeated, I think, for
a reason. And that’s so we don’t forget
it. And it’s to drive it into our hearts. And I think, I know
I’ve been saying this a little much lately, maybe beating this
drum, but keep in mind what’s coming to our nation. We are,
we have been quickly becoming a post-Christian nation. And
I think in the last nine, 10 months, especially the last four
or five weeks, we are seeing on fast forward, up and close
what it means to live in a world that says, you’re allowed to
say this, but you cannot ever say that. And who are probably
going to be the most targeted people? It’s going to be Christians.
And we need to remember that God has rescued and redeemed
and even sustained his people through a wilderness. He sustained
them under the heavy hand of Pharaoh. He sustained them under
the hand, as we’ll see next week in Psalm 137, of exile in Babylon. We’ve seen God sustain his people
under Roman empire. And over and over and over, we’ve
seen God take care of his people. And so, if you want to get ready
for such a thing, what’s the saying? We eat our Wheaties,
right? So how do you eat your Wheaties?
You know, and you study, and you sing your Psalms. and they’ll
get you through the hard times. Story after story, you can read
in Christian biographies, particularly of martyrs, and what was on their
minds, hearts, and on the tips of their tongues as they faced
hardship. It was the steadfast love of
the Lord enduring forever. So pray with me. Lord, bless
these words to our minds and hearts as we think through the
truth of who you are, what you have done and what you are yet
to do that is promised and will be for sure done because all
things are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. Lord, write these truths
in our minds, etch these emotions into our hearts and let us not
forget in good times and especially in ill that you are our God,
our creator, sustainer and redeemer. It’s in the name of Jesus we
pray, amen.