And so Psalm 136 is our text today. You can turn there if you have a copy of the scriptures in front of you. Psalm 136. And as you can tell, simply by looking at this text, it was designed and intentionally written to be sung or said or chanted responsibly. So we're gonna do that together here as we begin this morning, and in fact, hopefully with profit, at the end of our sermon as well. Pardon me. Now, since I know that there are many different translations here this morning, we're going to respond on the congregational part of the responsive reading with, for his steadfast love endures forever. So I will read the first part of each verse. You will respond with, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let's now take up Psalm 136 upon our lips and give it to the Lord. 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 who alone does great wonders. For his steadfast love endures forever. To him who by understanding made the heavens. 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. and brought Israel out from among them with a strong hand and an outstretched arm 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 lowest state and rescued us from our foes. He who gives food to all flesh Give thanks to the God of heaven. Amen. You can see right off the bat in this psalm that the call of the whole psalm is to give thanks. There's the primary command of the psalm. You see in verses one through three is the opening stanza. enters in, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Give thanks to the God of gods. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. And then it comes back to that theme in the very last verse. Give thanks to the God of heavens. And yet it's not something that's forgotten throughout the middle of the psalm, is it? on and on and on throughout the psalm, it's always reflecting back to that give thanks. You see how it says in verse four, to him, and verse five, to him, and verse six, to him, and verse seven, to him, and so on and so forth throughout the psalm. Why is it saying to him and not just him? Because the implied thing you're supposed to be carrying in your mind all the way through this is give thanks, right? Give thanks to him. Right? That's what this whole psalm is all about. So it's good for us to reflect just as we begin this psalm with a little bit of that giving thanks. What does that mean? Remember last week as we covered Psalm 135, another capstone psalm of all the psalms of ascents, now that we've come to the presence of God and praise him in his presence in Jerusalem. That psalm says, praise the Lord, and then it closes with, bless the Lord. Remember we talked about blessing as being giving our lives as living sacrifices to God. He gives us life and we give our lives to him in return. That is blessing the Lord. What is giving thanks? Pardon me. We might think of it simply as something, a simple, you know, thank you. Somebody did something nice for you. Something did somebody good for you. And so you say, thank you. You acknowledge the goodness of what that person has done for you. And that's certainly involved here, but I think if we stop with that and maybe are just merely English language connotations of thank you, we probably haven't grasped the depth of what the psalm is calling us to. The whole idea of giving thanks here is a joyful response to the great wonders that the Lord does. This is something that actually in scripture is not seen in just a private context. It's a public thing that you do. It's not just going to the person and saying, thank you. It is actually publicly giving thanks. That is acknowledging, building up, praising, honoring someone for having done something good. And so here, as we talk about the great wonders that God has done as this Psalm is going to unfold them, it's talking about responding to God publicly by talking about what he has done, by giving him the honor for what he has done. You can never, by the way, fulfill this just with your closet prayer, although I hope you are praying individually, giving thanks to the Lord and all that he does. You can fulfill this only by publicly proclaiming all the good works that God has done, a joyful response to the great wonders that the Lord does. So if this is the main calling of the Psalm, We need to ask, how does this psalm equip you to give thanks? Because that's what psalms do, remember. They don't just tell you to do it, they equip you to do it. They give you a way to do it. How does this psalm equip you to give thanks? I would submit to you it does it this way. It structures your soul to match the structure of reality. It structures your soul to match the structure of reality. By the way, when you try to live contrary to reality, that's a very painful experience, isn't it? I mean, sometimes parents, you think your job is helping your kids try to live in reality. Right? And when they don't, like you end up with lots of bruises and bangs and bumps and hard things happening, right? Because they're not, you know, gravity really is a real thing. And if you try to ignore that, you're gonna suffer the consequences. But the same thing is even more so true in the spiritual realm. That when we do not live according to reality, when our soul isn't shaped to perceive and respond to the way God really is and the world really is, you're gonna have a hard life. You're gonna run into all kinds of bumps and you aren't gonna see the goodness that is really there. So this Psalm takes reality and it puts it so that it can structure your soul. Now Psalm 135 did the same thing, but from the perspective of a flyover, if you will. All this history that Psalm 135 covered in big picture perspective. Now we get a more granular view down on the ground, walking step by step through the same history that Psalm 135 just covered for us, but now bringing it into the present as well, as this Psalm will conclude. I'd like you to picture Psalm 136 today like a finely woven fabric. Have you ever watched a skilled weaver work? It's not something we commonly experience every day, although that used to be more of a household craft, right? Most of our clothes and tapestries and things are made elsewhere, so we don't see this in action. I've enjoyed, as I'm sure many of you have, watching sometimes skillful weavers at work. The weaver will set up the warp threads on a loom lengthwise. All these threads are put in place And they are, as one weaver described them, the backbone of the weave. All these threads are gonna become the backbone of everything that's going to, of what's going to be produced here. And then the weaver will take a shuttle and pass threads through the warp, crosswise. The warp is running this way, the shuttle runs through. These are called the weft, or sometimes the woof, of the weaving. The weaver continues this process then until There's a beautiful piece of fabric that's been created, some immensely intricate and skillful and very beautiful. What this psalm does is weaves for us a poetic representation of reality. And the point of putting it into a poem is so that we can rehearse it and appropriate it to our own souls. And our souls can connect with and conform to reality, which is ultimately goodness and truth and beauty, which is ultimately our God. And the warp of this reality is, as the psalm puts it continually, these threads running through, the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. That is the warp of reality. And then the weft is all the particular acts of the Lord by which he shows his goodness. That's exactly what this Psalm does for you. It says, here's the steadfast love of the Lord. Now here's what he did. Here's the steadfast love of the Lord. Now here's what he did. Here's the steadfast love of the Lord. Now here's what he did. You see that? Let's examine the tapestry together so that we can give thanks to the Lord as we are told to do in this Psalm. First of all, the warp. The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. By now in our study of the Psalms, pardon me, you are very familiar with this term steadfast love. The chesed of the Lord. It expresses a wonderfully rich concept. And so you will see it translated sometimes as mercy or loving kindness or loyal love or faithful love or steadfast love as the ESV typically translates it. The Lord revealed himself to Moses as abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is his character. If you will, this is what he is alive with. When he says abounding in steadfast love, he's not trying to put some kind of a numerical quality on it, as if you could count up how much greatness is there. The point is, it's immense. It's who he is. It's everlasting. As we just saw in that text, it's very frequently combined with faithfulness, steadfast love and faithfulness. And this connotes a firmness, a stability, a reliability, or a trustworthiness. Psalm 25.10 says, all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. The Lord has said, is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Psalm 108 verse five. The word picture here lifts our hearts to perceive that the Lord's steadfast love fills, permeates all of his works. Psalm 33 verses four and five says that all his work is done in faithfulness. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. And that reminds us once again that all of creation, not to mention all of redemption yet, but even all of creation has the steadfast love of the Lord built right into it. That is the reality upon which creation supervenes. And then we see that the Lord's chasid is the basis of his saving work as well, not just his creative work. David pleaded in Psalm 64, turn O Lord, deliver my life, save me for the sake of your steadfast love. Psalm 31 verse 17 says, make your face shine upon your servant, save me in your steadfast love. And so when God shows himself faithful to his covenant commitments, he leads his people and he forgives their sins, we see in the scripture. His steadfast love pursues his people in this life and forever, as one of the most famous Psalms in the world says, Psalm 23, verse six. Surely goodness and chesed, his mercy, will follow me forever. And I will dwell all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And so his steadfast love is a great comfort to his people. Isaiah 54 verse eight says, with everlasting love, I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. That everlasting love is his chesed. So even just as little bit we've traced out so far from the Old Testament, you're seeing a wonderful truth of God being revealed in his works of creation and redemption. And yet, even with all of these wonderful celebrations of this, I don't believe the Old Testament saints had yet seen how profoundly God would reveal His steadfast love and faithfulness. In John 1, verse 14, we find that the Word, who was with God and who was God, and He became flesh. In other words, the self-existent and eternal One, who is Himself steadfast love, became a man. Now this is one of the central claims of Christianity. It sets Christianity apart from all other religions. The God we adore is distinct from any man-made God that ever has been dreamed up by man or ever will be dreamed up by man because, pardon me, he is the I am and yet he became man, took true human nature to himself. John 1 14 continues, pardon me, and John speaks on behalf of the disciples when he says this, we have seen his glory. God revealed his glory to Moses. John says, now we see that glory made known. This glory is of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. This son is full of grace and truth. And that means, as one has put it, He proved to be a complete, perfect expression of God's covenant-keeping faithfulness, His hesed, His grace, and His truth. If you see Jesus for who He truly is today, folks, you see embodied God's steadfast love and faithfulness. That's what you're seeing in Jesus Christ. And that's why the scripture will go on to say in places like Colossians chapter one, that he, Jesus, is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. It's no stretch at all to say that in God's steadfast love, all things, all created things, hold together. This is reality. In him, Colossians two will say, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. 2 Corinthians will say all the promises of God find their yes in him, right? Everything comes to fruition in him. Now, by the way, for us today, one of the central tensions of the gospel of John, since we're talking about that, is the question, do you see his glory? This is who he has been revealed as. Do you who are assembled here today see the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ as ultimate reality? Do you believe in the Son? Will you believe John's testimony? Throughout the Gospel of John, there's this progressive unveiling of that glory through Jesus's signs and his words culminating in the hour in which the Son of Man was glorified. Jesus was lifted up on the cross. He died and he rose from the dead. That is what you need to be seeing when you're thinking about God's steadfast love and faithfulness. Now back to John 1, he continues here, for from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. What fullness is it that we have received? The fullness, which directly includes God's loyal and kind love. We participate in it, it applies to us. We are now taken into reality, you might say. That's what our psalm is talking about. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. God has so taken his creation to himself, in his own person, in Jesus Christ, that it all comes to fulfillment in him. And so let's add that phrase in here from our psalm, that his steadfast love endures forever. Anything that endures forever is not any merely created thing. You see, all created things change. They are in flux. They decay. They have corruption. We're talking about something here that is greater than all change and flux and decay and corruption of this time-space continuum. In fact, we're talking about something here which underlies and gives existence to everything in the changing world that is sensible. Everything we experience with our eyes, our ears, our tongues, our fingers, everything that we sense in this world All of that is actually intended to make something else known to us, something intelligible spiritually, the steadfast love of the Lord. In other words, that is the reality being communicated to you by everything God has made. And I mean everything. That is the fabric of the universe. Today, people are often, well, I should say the whole history of mankind, but you see it today, are engaged in trying to understand the real fabric of the universe, the real thing that makes things what they are. And if we're talking in biology, we start talking in the realm of genetics and stuff like that. This is what really makes things what they are. If we're talking in the realm of physics, we start talking about gravity or strong forces and weak forces and different things. And this is what really makes things the way they are. But we're here to say today, actually no. All those things are still created things. Whatever you might think of them, they change. They don't endure forever. They don't have life in themselves. What does? Where can you really find bedrock? This is reality that will not change. The steadfast love of the Lord. That's what is. And everything else is built on that. Everything else comes back to that, otherwise it wouldn't be. It wouldn't exist. Folks, if that's not what you see when you look at the world, if you look out at this world today and you don't see the steadfast love of the Lord, then your soul has not been conformed to reality. You need to sing this psalm a lot, right? And when your soul is not conformed to reality, you're going to experience the pain of trying to live contrary to reality. You're not gonna see God's goodness, and it's not gonna draw you out into paths of righteousness. You're going to live in a world enclosed of your own making, of man's own making, and you're constantly gonna be running into reality, and it's gonna be painful for you. But there is a way to change that, right? It's repentance and faith. Turn to Jesus Christ. Come to see him as the all in all. come to believe what this psalm actually says, that he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. And this is ultimate goodness and truth and beauty. In other words, what you should perceive when you look around at this world is that the fabric of life is the love of the Lord. That's it. The fabric of life is the love of the Lord. So we've talked about the warp of this great tapestry of Psalm 136. Now let's look at the weft here, the Lord's wondrous works. If the warp is the steadfast love of the Lord, then the weft is the wondrous works that God does. For that's exactly what the Psalm leads us into, right? It talks about how great he is over all things, God of gods, Lord of lords. And then in verses four through nine, we see his wondrous works in creation, but not just nature in general, creation by wisdom, creation by understanding, to him who alone does great wonders. He brings into existence what was not in existence before. He speaks and it is. This is a great wonder. This is what the world is. It's God's Word coming to pass. And when he does speak it into existence, it's by understanding. See that in verse five? To him who by understanding made the heavens, by wisdom, he knows exactly what he's doing and everything he creates manifests that wisdom. By the way, this is the whole foundation for what today gets called science, right? So often science thinks that it has to ignore God in order to be science. it's ignoring its own foundation. This world isn't random. We can study it and see patterns and we can see progressions and we can see things like causes and effects. Why? Because there is wisdom built in here and it's the wisdom of God. This world isn't random cause and effect. It's not just big bang material. This is what God himself is working out based on his own character. He by wisdom made the heavens. He spread out the earth above the waters so that it is not chaotic. It is not random. It is established as the Psalms often put it. He made the great lights and he didn't make them randomly. He made the sun to rule the day and he made the moon and the stars to rule the night. Even to this day with all of our supposed technological advancement, right? what rules our lives, the time of our lives, right? The day and the night and the whole cycle of this world. That's God ruling his world through the things he has made. You should see creation by understanding here. Proverbs 3.19 says, the Lord by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he established the heavens. And I would urge you today as you sing this song, as you're wanting to know the fabric of life, which is the love of the Lord, press into the deep wisdom worked by the Lord's skill into his world. Press into that. This is the time of year in our society where we often think about things like graduations. You know, we have schools and you have graduations and people go to graduations. And what's that supposed to represent? That people have actually learned something, we hope, right? We hope this represents the fact that people have studied and they have learned and acquired certain skills. And in fact, we would hope under a biblical understanding of the world that people are not just gaining technical skills, not becoming just technicians, but becoming wise people. Now that's one of the great failures of our current educational model is that we're not after wisdom, we're after technical skill because we think that's how we control the world and make it do what we want. That's idolatry, right? If you're a learned person, if you're an educated person, you have wisdom. You don't just have technical skills. There can be really, really intelligent, skillful fools. The whole point is to become wise. That is, to enter into a loving relationship with God. That's what education is for. And that's why we human beings were made to learn. Press into the deep wisdom, never stop learning in your life. Never stop going forward in wonder at what God is putting out there in front of us because he's revealing himself. Keep learning, keep growing. Yes, based on the scriptures, and then work that out into everything that you experience in this life. Don't be one of those people that is dull, that is turned off to this world, that buries your head in your cell phone and never actually sees anything that's going on in this world. Learn what's around you. Open up your heart. This is what God is calling you to, and it's a good thing, it's a good life, because he's made a world in wisdom. Press into that. But of course, that's not all the psalm talks about. That sets the foundation here, his creative work. But it goes on in verses 10 through 22 to talk about redemption. We have creation by understanding and redemption by loving power. And you see God's triumph is emphasized by this psalm. To him who, very first note here in this part, struck down the firstborn of Egypt. and brought Israel from among them with a strong hand and an outstretched arm." Strength, power, God working to do his goodwill. Pardon me. Now, when we first think about power, we might not immediately think about love. But do you see how the Psalm right away weaves these together? He strikes down Pharaoh. He strikes down the firstborn of Egypt, I should say, verse 10. Later, it talks about Pharaoh. But why does he do that? To bring Israel out from among them. And then it's going to talk about other things that God does here. He divides the Red Sea. Why does he do that? To make Israel pass through the midst of it. He overthrows or shakes off Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. Why does he do that? To lead his people through the wilderness. He strikes down great kings, mighty kings, Sihon, Og, why does he do that? To give their land as a heritage to his people. You see what's motivating all of this? What's driving everything, these great acts of power that God is doing? It's his love for his people. Folks, you have to realize that the driving force of history is not what Marx thought or anybody else, it's the love of God. That's what makes things move in this world. That's what makes things happen. And we so often interpret all that's happening in this world apart from that, don't we? And we get afraid. We're like the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and the waves are big, you know. Pardon me. And we're so terrified of all that's going on around us. And we forget the one who's there with us, who says, peace be still, right? And he is the one who is the driving force of everything that's happening because it's a display of his love. That's why these things happen. Pardon me. Redemption here by loving power triumph. You see what love leads the Lord to do is to triumph over all his and our enemies. Why does God set himself to conquer Pharaoh, to conquer these kings, to conquer the Red Sea that would stand in the way of his people? Because of love. It's not simply a display of hubristic power. Hey, look at me, right? I can do these things, you can't. Now, on one level, that's appropriate for God to do because he is God and we're not. And yet, even though he could have done that, I mean, perfectly justified, just raw displays of power because he's God. He didn't do that. Every time he displays his power, his love is built right into it, right? He is accomplishing good for his people. And that's why what glorifies God is what is good for us. This is the way the world works. And this is what we should see. In all of God's particular works throughout history, He is demonstrating his redemption by his loving power. Now, this psalm, unlike Psalm 135, doesn't stop with just the history part. It takes us up to, in verse 22, a heritage for Israel, his servant, like we talked about last week in Psalm 135, giving this wonderful gift to his people as a place to dwell with him. But now, in a little conclusion here in verses 23 through 25, kind of takes it even beyond that history. and connects it more with what is coming up here. It is He who remembered us in our lowest state and rescued us from our foes, separated us out, is the idea of this rescue, tore us apart from our foes. They were clinging to us, dragging us down, and He divided us from them so to deliver us. And He gives food to all flesh. In other words, what we as believers today can see is that God is working in Christ to bring his people to eternal enjoyment in himself. God is working in Christ to bring his people to eternal enjoyment in himself. He remembers. Even as we sit here today, the father sees his own son sitting at his right hand as a man. one of us, and he cannot forget, right? He can never turn away all that he's committed to in Jesus Christ. All that Christ's sacrifice has accomplished will be fulfilled because God will never forget, never forget his people. This is what your life is, folks. It's a history of God remembering you in Christ. You don't want him to remember you apart from Christ, because you have nothing to commend yourself to him. But your whole eternal destiny relies on him remembering you in Christ. And he does. Once again, his steadfast love. He delivers those who are his people. Pardon me. Those who run to him for refuge, as the good news is proclaimed in Jesus Christ. he separates out from their foes and he brings them to himself. In fact, that goodness is so overflowing that he gives food to all flesh, it says here in verse 25. And here the psalm has come in a sense almost full circle back to from his creation to honing in on his redemption to seeing how his redemption actually overflows back into all of his creation. Why should God give food even to rebellious flesh in the world right now? Why is he, like Jesus talked about the Father in the Sermon on the Mount, making his sun to shine, the rain to fall on the just and the unjust? You know, that's a function of his steadfast love. There is a kind of a goodness that even goes to his enemies through that, but ultimately even that he is doing for the sake of his people. When you sit down to eat a meal, and you realize God is giving food to flesh here, and you thank him for it, as you should, you realize he is doing this as the outworking, not just of his general providence, although it is that, all men should see his goodness here, but even of his special love in Christ to his people. Why does God make nations rise and fall? Why does God bring about certain societies and then take down others? Do you realize that's all for the sake of his people? Do you realize that's all about, that's why we talk about the church being the heart of the world, and the heart of history, and the heart of everything that's going on in this world. And if you're a part of that today in Christ, you can see your life, and here's the beauty, you can see the specifics of your life brought into that. Why does God give you a job? Why does God give you what you need, your clothing, your food? It is a part of his general providence, but there's something even deeper than that going on here. God is revealing his steadfast love in Christ to you. If you have eyes to see that and a heart to receive it, this is what we ought to see. In fact, I would ask you today We think about conforming your soul to reality, or maybe even challenge you, I might say. You need to rehearse everything you know, everything you experience, in light of the steadfast love of the Lord. Think back today on what has been your experience in life. Everything you remember, everything you've gone through, your particular family background, your particular, shall I say genetics, your particular educational background, economic background, the relationships that have formed a part of who you are today. Think back on all that. And I would ask you today, can you see that as the outworking of the steadfast love of the Lord? You say, Pastor, but I've had a very hard background. You don't understand all that I've been through. Is that for you the outworking of the steadfast love of the Lord? Is he bringing you to himself through that? And the answer is in Christ he is, right? At the cross he's dealing with all the sin and the resurrection and the ascension, the triumph of Jesus Christ. He is bringing you to himself. And so there is literally nothing that you can experience in this world that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Why? Because the steadfast love of the Lord is reality, and nothing else ultimately is. That's what this is calling us to, folks. In the end, when the Lord has finished working his masterpiece, it will be seen that the meaning of the cosmos, the whole meaning of the cosmos, is the steadfast love of the Lord revealed in Jesus Christ, The fabric of life is the steadfast love of the Lord. And so with that today, I would like you to rehearse this once again with Psalm 136, and then we will close with confessing our faith. You respond as I read. 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. To him who 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 lights. The sun to rule over the day. the moon and the stars to rule over the night. To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt and brought Israel out from among them with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. 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. 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. Give thanks to the God of heaven. Let's confess together that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Amen.