Give Thanks to He Who Is
Notes
Transcript
Psalm 136:1-9 ESV
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
Here in the month of November, I felt that it would be appropriate for us to work through a series of sermons on the topic of thanksgiving. And when I say “thanksgiving” I don’t mean the day, rather, I mean the act of giving thanks.
Indeed, we all, every one of us have very much to be thankful for. We all go through hard times, that’s just a part of life, but when we think about everything that we currently have and have received, we see that we have very, very much to be thankful for.
And sure, we can say, “I want to thank my parents for everything that they did for me because if they had not done everything that they had done for me, I wouldn’t be who I am today.” Or we can say, “I want to thank my wife or my husband. Because if it wasn’t for her, if it wasn’t for him, I would be lonely.” We might even say, “I want to thank my High-Definition TV, because of it, I’m always entertained”.
But we have to remember what is said in the epistle of James, chapter 1, verse 17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Yes, we have gifts, we have what is good for us, but that which we have originates with God. And for this reason, we must thank God for giving us what He has wisely chosen to give to us. It is imperative for us to thank God; indeed, it is only proper for us to thank God.
Whenever we do something for someone or whenever we help someone, in whatever way that we help them, we may not always expect payment for what we have done, but we always want the person to at least say “thank you”.
And if we do something for someone and that person does not say “thank you”, it puts a pretty bad taste in our mouths, after all, we went out of our way, used our resources to help that person, and we don’t even get a “thank you” for what we’ve done!?
That bothers us, and really, there’s nothing wrong with that bothering us, it should bother us when people are ungrateful and selfish, because being ungrateful and selfish are sinful behaviors and as born-again Christians, sin should bother us.
So, if it bothers us when people don’t thank us when we help them and provide for them, do you think that it might bother God, the One Who gives us every good and perfect gift when we refuse to acknowledge what He gives us, let alone thank Him for what He does and for Who He is?
You see, the greatest blessing that there is, the most stupendous reality that there could possibly be is that God is God. That God is Who God is. And in spite of God being Who He is and we being who we are, we are not only spared from instantaneous judgment, but we are provided for by this God, and in the case of His elect, we are granted eternal life by this God.
Thus, it is most certainly fitting that all people are expected, and in fact commanded by God to thank Him simply for allowing them to exist and for providing them with life that they do not deserve. But it isinfinitely more fitting and appropriate for those who have been saved by God, who have been born-again by God, to offer God a continuous thanksgiving to His holy majesty.
And thus, what we will focus on this month as we exposit Psalm 136 is the responsibility that we as Christians share to continuously thank God for no other reason than because He is God.
Now, as we study this psalm, the one constant that we will see in every single verse are the words, “for His steadfast love endures forever”.
Thus, we are reminded throughout the entire psalm that God does what He does, that God is Who He is because He is love. His attributes, His name, His acts are all in accord with the fact that the steadfast love which proceeds from Him is a love that originated in Him and that lasts forever and ever.
Thus, we see right away in the beginning of this first verse:
Psalm 136:1a ESV
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
Thus, we immediately see in this first verse, the command. That command is to give thanks. Now, to give thanks most frequently is connected to verbal thanksgiving. Thus, to give thanks most frequently means to verbally thank in a most heartfelt manner.
And we see Who we are to thank when the psalmist tells us to give thanks “to the Lord”. Thus, we see that the One Who we are to thank is specifically the God of Israel. It is not a “god” of our imagination, or a “god” of another religion, but rather, it is the one true God Who reveals Himself in the holy scriptures, Who truly is the God of heaven and earth, the God of all things.
And lastly, we see in the first part of this first verse that we are to thank this God, “for He is good”.
Now, I hear people say all the time, “So and so is a good guy. So and so is just a really good lady.” But in all reality, there is only One Who is good; because to be good means to be absolutely holy, to be absolutely other than, and there is only One Who meets that criterion, that one is God.
Thus, we see immediately the psalmist command us to thank God because He is God, to thank Him simply because there is no other like Him. To thank Him for what He is, and that is good, and to recognize that there is none good but Him.
We then proceed to look at verses 2 and 3 which lead us into even greater detail concerning the absolute otherness of God where we read:
Psalm 136:2-3 ESV
2 Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
So, here again we see further attributes of the Lord when the psalmist declares that the God of Israel is “the God of gods”.
Now of course, we all know that there is only one true God. There is only one Who is the Creator, the Sustainer, Who is truly sovereign. But there are still many others in the spiritual realms, dark, fallen beings who masquerade as gods, leading many to damnation. Even these, the psalmist tells us, God is sovereign over.
Furthermore, the psalmist calls the God of Israel the “Lord of lords”. This is in reference to anyone who holds authority here on earth. At the helm of this power is the power of God. Those who have authority have that authority because God has given them that authority.
He is truly power, He is truly strength, therefore any power or strength that exists, exists because it came from the Lord of lords, the God of Israel.
We then continue in verse 4 to look further at the holiness, the absolute otherness of God, where it says:
Psalm 136:4 ESV
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
The psalmist commands us to give thanks to Him Who alone does great wonders. Now, as I said a few moments ago, if we have strength, if we have power, it’s only because God gave us that strength, that power. It all originates with Him. But there are certain things, in fact, an infinitely great many things that only God can do, things that God does notenable us to do.
We then begin to see just a few instances of these great wonders that God alone performs, beginning in verse 5, where we read:
Psalm 136:5 ESV
5 to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
It is written that what is performed here is performed through God’s understanding. This means that what is performed by God is accomplished, is carried out through the divine wisdom of God.
And what we see in this verse is that through the understanding of God, as a result of the wisdom that God alone possesses, the heavens were made.
When the Bible refers to “the heavens” it doesn’t just mean “Heaven” that place where God chooses to presently dwell. Rather, it is in reference to everything that is of the air, the sky which we can see with the naked eye, the astronomical realm that we can see only with something like a telescope, and the spiritual realm that cannot be seen with the eyes of man.
We continue to see the great wonders that God alone performs in verse 6, where we read:
Psalm 136:6 ESV
6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
This is interesting in that it speaks of God spreading out the earth above the waters. Thus, we see that in the wisdom of God, He saw fit to take earth, to take land, and to seemingly raise it up out of the water that He had already created so that it might be fit for man to live on.
And then lastly, we see in verses 7 through 9 more great wonders that God alone performs, where we read:
Psalm 136:7-9 ESV
7 to him who made the great lights,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
8 the sun to rule over the day,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
9 the moon and stars to rule over the night,
for his steadfast love endures forever;
We see here that through understanding, that is, through the infinite wisdom of God, He made two great lights. One of those great lights was the sun. The sun gives us light; it gives us heat, it rules over the day in that it is chiefly seen in the heavens during the day.
The other great lights that the psalmist refers to here are the moon and the stars, who though are seen because of the reflection of the sun, are chiefly seen in the heavens at night.
Thus, we see in our reading today that everything that we could possibly need in order to exist and be sustained on this planet we receive from God.
It is not because of our collective hard work and wisdom that the world goes round, it is not because of any great thing that we do that causes the sun to rise in the morning and for the moon and the stars to appear at night. It is not because of any great wisdom that we possess that the crops grow, that the rains come, that the seasons change. Those things come about because it is God’s good pleasure for them to come about when they do.
It is not because of any kind of sovereignty or say so, or even a vote on our part that those who rule do in fact rule. No, they rule because it is God’s good pleasure for them to rule, that God did in fact ordain them to rule, and that through the sovereignty of God, He is accomplishing His purposes through those who rule.
He is Who He is, He is the great I am, the One and only true Being, that is, the One and only Who never changes, Who always has been, Who always is, and Who always will be. He changes not. It is because of Him that we exist, it is for Him that we exist.
It is to Him that we are commanded to offer eternal thanks!
As the people of God, let us ever thank Him because He is Who He is.
Amen?