"...His love endures forever."
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Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!
Let Israel say,
“His steadfast love endures forever.”
Let the house of Aaron say,
“His steadfast love endures forever.”
Let those who fear the Lord say,
“His steadfast love endures forever.”
Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me free.
The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
The Lord is on my side as my helper;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in princes.
All nations surrounded me;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me like bees;
they went out like a fire among thorns;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,
but the Lord helped me.
The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
Glad songs of salvation
are in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the Lord does valiantly,
the right hand of the Lord exalts,
the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!”
I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has disciplined me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we pray, O Lord!
O Lord, we pray, give us success!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God,
and he has made his light to shine upon us.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,
up to the horns of the altar!
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God; I will extol you.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!
Scripture: Psalm 118:1-29
Sermon Title: “…His love endures forever.”
We will be wrapping up our Fall in the Psalms series on Thursday morning with Psalm 65, but today we’re picking up a psalm from Book Five. The ESV Study Notes on this large collection of Psalms from 107-150 say, “The structure of Book 5 reflects the closing petition of Book 4 in 106:47.” That verse captures a sense of seeking salvation in the LORD and giving him thanks and glory. “[Book Five] declares that God does answer prayer and concludes with five Hallelujah psalms. In between there are several psalms affirming the validity of the promises to David; two collections of Davidic psalms; the longest psalm [Psalm 119], celebrating the value of the law; and 15 psalms of ascent for use by pilgrims to Jerusalem.” I think you can hear in those notes that these are by and large happy, cheerful psalms of praise more so than other psalms we’ve looked at.
Today we’re in Psalm 118, which is part of a smaller collection, the “Egyptian hallel.” Here’s a summary of what that’s about. “Psalms 113-118 have been called the ‘Egyptian hallel’ ([The Hebrew word] hallel means ‘praise’; ‘Egyptian’ because of the later connection with Passover), [These psalms] came to be a regular part of the great festivals of the liturgical year (including Hanukkah, the Dedication, once it was instituted in the intertestamental period). These psalms likely provided the hymn that Jesus and his disciples sang after their Passover meal.” It was likely used in the upper room; it may also have been sung by those with Jesus on Palm Sunday as it captures some of the language and themes that we hear there. Those details are a good reminder that the whole Book of Psalms has been referred to as the songbook of God’s people. These were the hymns primarily used in biblical times and have been throughout history.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it struck me as I was preparing this message that maybe I should have switched around what I’m planning to preach on Thursday and this psalm. Not that thankfulness is lacking in Psalm 65, but we just heard quite a bit of thanks. Five times the psalmist commands us to give thanks or shares that he himself is giving thanks to the Lord. That is one of the central commands of this passage.
With that in mind, I want you to take a moment and think about either what you’re most thankful for right now or look back on your life—what have you been the most thankful for ever? Maybe the boys and girls would say their parents or their family, their friends, their toys. For teenagers, maybe you’re looking at the week ahead and you’re saying, “I’m thankful for breaks from school”—that may feel like the best part of your life right now. For adults, maybe it’s good health or healing that you’ve experienced or witnessed in recent days and weeks; maybe even a miracle in a loved one’s life. Or maybe we’re most thankful for our job and the ability to provide for ourselves and our family through that. We’re thankful for someone who came into our lives at just the right time, whether a spouse or a good Samaritan or someone who was willing to come and stick around with us as a friend or mentor. Perhaps what we’re most thankful for is all the little things in life that we take for granted, that so often go unnoticed, that we’ve always felt safe and that we’ve had enough—the things that allow us to say that our lives have gone pretty well and smoothly, knowing that’s not always the case for everyone. If we’re a Christian, we can say we’re thankful to God for Jesus and the gift of faith—those are the greatest things to be thankful for.
Whether what comes to mind for you is one of the examples I just gave or one you thought of on your own, I’m guessing that it’s something that has been provided to you, that it’s something or someone apart from yourself. It was something you couldn’t do. That’s the form that gratitude or thankfulness takes most often. Unless we’re so selfish or self-centered, we’re thankful most in the times when we realized we were at a loss or unable to do something. We needed help and someone was there for us.
While it’s true that any person, regardless of faith, can be thankful and express a certain amount of gratitude, where we begin this morning is that Christians have been created and redeemed to be intentionally thankful people. We’ll come back to this line in a moment, but I want us to take a broad view at Psalm 118. As we read through it, you might have heard some repeated words or phrases—and you’re not crazy. There are about ten repetitions in the psalm. You can see them on the screen. As noted before, five times we hear either “Give thanks to the LORD” or “I will give you thanks.” At the beginning and the end, we find with that, “For he is good,” and the same Hebrew word for good is what begins verses 8 and 9 “It is better.” We find the repetition in each of verses 1 through 4 and then in verse 29, “His [the LORD’s] love endures forever.” We find pairs and trios of lines: “The LORD is with me,” “…take refuge in the LORD,” “…in the name of the LORD I cut them off.” We find similar phrasing in a couple places about God becoming the psalmist’s salvation, and that authoritative language about “The LORD’s right hand…” which “has done mighty things.” Finally, the proclamation, “The LORD is God,” and the psalmist’s personal confession, “You are my God.”
It’s possible that all this repetition is included simply because of how these lines and verses would have been put to music and sung, but as we’ve heard before, repetition also is intended to emphasize things that we should pay attention to in the Bible. So, Christians, and I’m pulling into that the covenant people of God in the Old Testament, we have been created and redeemed to be intentionally thankful people. We are people who must look outside of ourselves. Every one of those ten repetitions that we hear in this psalm are referring specifically to the LORD God. The psalmist was not thankful for circumstances. He’s not even most grateful for a mighty or powerful or rich ruler. These are the words of someone who is both convicted and convinced of what God has done and is able to do for him. He doesn’t just acknowledge the existence of this God, but he thanked him over and over again. What thankfulness is is heaping praise on God.
That should be a lesson for us. When we are genuine about praising God, when we are intentional about thanking him—in word, in song, in prayer, in action—that is a deterrent from the sin of pride. If we are sincere in our thanks to God for the daily gifts and the protection and sustenance that he provides, then we can’t help but have our lives, minds, and hearts fixed on him. Living an intentionally thankful life keeps God at the center of our lives rather than just us being led back to thinking about ourselves and living for what we want, selfishly expecting God to just give us thing after thing. Thankfulness or gratitude reminds us that we only can have what we do because of the graciousness and the generosity of our God. God should not be someone that we just bump into every now and then; we should daily be returning to him.
Let’s move onto our second point now, which is the reason or motivation for our thanks is not temporary. For this, I have our title verse in mind, “…His love endures forever.” Psalm 118 is written from a particular historical context. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what it is. Some scholars think it may have been written following a certain battle—as we hear about enemies and being surrounded by nations on every side, the striving for and attaining victory could be related to that. Others take it as more of a post-exile psalm. In spite of having fallen in the past and experiencing anguish, and having been chastened under God’s judgment, the LORD held out hope to his people. After some time, they were allowed to return to Jerusalem, instructed to rebuild the temple, and continued+ to praise God even though they went through devastating times.
Whether it was written in response to something short term and immediate or something that was experienced over the course of generations, the experience and the hope of God’s love lasts far longer for those who seek the Lord. “His love endures forever.” If you read through the Psalms, you likely know that line is not unique to Psalm 118. Maybe Psalm 136 comes to mind. That psalm is giving thanks to God for many things, it has 26 verses, and at the end of each verse are the words, “His love endures forever.” This was a truth, a promise, a reality, and it was part of the covenant that Israel understood themselves to be in.
But what is forever about? The Hebrew word translated here is “olam.” Going back in the Old Testament, one of the first places we find it is back in the days of Noah after the flood. In Genesis 9:16, we read that God made an “everlasting covenant,” and the rainbow was a sign of that. In Genesis 13, 17, and 48, we read of God making covenants with Abraham related to the land of Canaan, and the descendants of Abraham, and the sign of circumcision—those were forever covenants, and Jacob told his children of that. If you read through the laws and statutes that God gave in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, a number of those are said to be olam—they are lasting laws; they weren’t just for a short period of time—God meant them for as long as Israel was his particular people. The kingdom God set up in Israel as we read of in 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicles, it was a forever kingdom.
These uses were not exaggerations. God alone can speak in forever terms. That’s not just thinking about eternal life, but he holds the scope of all creation. He knows the number of days that there will be before something comes to pass. What he has declared as righteousness is righteousness forever. So too, what he declared about his love through the psalmists is true. We know that it was in his covenant love, his steadfast lovingkindness, that he allowed his people to be defeated because of their sin and turning away from him. He didn’t stop loving them completely; he disciplined them. We’re able to trust what God has spoken back then as well as for our present time and for our life to come because all of eternity, all of time, is under his power.
Let’s go back to the questions I asked at the opening—what are you currently or what have you ever been most thankful for? It’s easy for us to give thanks to someone for a time or for something for a time, but eventually—in most cases—our thanks runs its course. I don’t feel the need to thank someone every day or every time I see them for the entirety of my life for what they did way back when. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not thankful for what they did or the difference it made in my life, but gratitude for that action, that time, has been received, recognized, and we can move on.
In the case of God and his forever love, though, God is constantly—daily, yearly, throughout our whole lives at work and revealing his love. As we come into and go through different periods of life, different hardships and burdens, different joys and opportunities, the believer can be sure that God will help us; he will be there. Even greater yet, we can know the unfailing love of God unto salvation. The second question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism takes up how we can live and die in the joy of belonging to Christ. It says we have to know how great our sin and misery are, how we’re set free, and then “…How I am to thank God for such deliverance.” We believe the work that God has started will come to completion. If we’ve been delivered by him, we can be sure his deliverance will last forever. You don’t get to be redeemed by the blood of Jesus and start to be made new and lose that; no, the love of God “endures forever.”
That brings us to our final point, and with that we’re jumping towards the end of Psalm 118 to what we find in verses 22 and 23. Our third point is the LORD can use what others have rejected for his glory! Hear again from those verses, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” If you’re like myself and not construction-inclined, it’s easy to wonder what this is about in construction terms and then what is this even talking about? A capstone can be one of the top parts of a structure; it’s visible and completes it. That seems to be different from a cornerstone, which is an essential piece as you can hear in the name at the corner of a building; it provides the right angle for what is going to be built up from that. In either case, whether on the bottom or a top; we’re hearing in verse 22 about something that seems to have been just tossed aside, rejected, which is now necessary and vital.
It’s possible in the psalm’s immediate context that this is about a king—a king who was rejected by others and yet they’re used by God. It could be about Israel in general—others looked down on them, but look how God claimed them and made them instrumental in his plan of salvation. We know, though, this isn’t the last time these words show up in the Bible.
Jesus referred back to them. In Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, and Luke 20:17, Jesus was speaking in parables, even parables with judgment, and he asked his listeners if they had heard these words and he quoted Psalm 118 verses 22 and 23. According to Matthew, he went on to say, “‘Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.’” In Luke 20, we read how “The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him…because they knew he had spoken this parable against them.” He’s interpreting the psalm being about himself. He was the one the supposed leaders of God’s people, the Jews, were rejecting and yet he was the one sent by God to save them. So, God would not hold back the good news of salvation from going beyond the borders of Israel and only to Jews.
It’s with that understanding that we find the apostle Peter using Psalm 118:22 in Acts 4:11, followed by the proclamation, “‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.’” He echoes that in 1 Peter 2, referring to Jesus as the precious “capstone” and “cornerstone,” and wrote, “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.’”
We need this reminder, this truth. We live in a world in which many people of varying beliefs see hopelessness. We see trouble and division, and yet for us as believers we know that we have been given the answer. We have “the precious stone.” Even when things appear hopeless, we know they ultimately are not. We know that God is in control and that one day he will bring perfection into what has been broken. We have the answer, we have the hope, which is Jesus Christ, believe in him alone for salvation. And we can find ourselves saying, “Why don’t more people want what we have?” Yet, brothers and sisters, throughout history this has been played out time and time again—that people reject what is good for them, what is necessary for them. Praise be to God, he has taken what has been rejected and continued to offer it because he knows his plan.
I don’t say this to discourage us in general or discourage us from sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the hopes of more people being saved. No, redemption in Jesus Christ is good news; it must be shared! We’ve seen that in our own lives hopefully, and we’ve seen it in others. But we need to remember that our Savior Jesus Christ is often rejected yet God’s plans are not thwarted. So, hold onto him, through thick and thin in each of our lives. Hold onto the promises that his love he is good, his love endures, he is a perfect refuge, he is with us that we need not be afraid; he is our salvation, for his love endures forever. Amen.