“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.’” (Psalm 118:1-4)
I often talk about how the Church in general and us specifically often lack assurance in our outward faith. We know in our heads that we are God’s through Christ alone…but it is not how we live. Why the disconnect? Well, pretty much every Sunday since 1998 I have laid out one or more reasons why this disconnect happens. A big one is the lack of the total assurance of who God is and what God has done for all who are His. We call this theology or doctrine…something that many people don’t want to talk about.
Another big one that causes a disconnect is that many do not have an adequate understanding of God’s covenant with His people. Again doctrine…but as we are seeing in Sunday School almost every Sunday the covenant is foundational for us to be able to understand, articulate and live out correctly before the face of God what we believe.
Now, to our text this morning. The more I read Scripture the more I come across this phrase, “…His steadfast love endures forever!” which may reveal another disconnect with what we know and how we live. While this phrase appears 4 times in the above 4 verses it appears close to 400 times in all of Scripture to remind us (because we forget) of the kind of love God actually has for us…a love that caused Him to choose us before the foundations of the earth, “…He (God the Father) chose us in Him (Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Eph. 1:4-6) This is a steadfast love.
We know this is true because we have been taught it is true and we repeat this phrase regularly enough in worship and our reading of the Scriptures. We are commanded, just like Israel before us, to say, “…His steadfast love endures forever!” The Priest and the Levites that regularly teach the people to remember God’s steadfast love are to publically acknowledge God’s steadfast love….so too, the officers of God’s church today! All of us, like Israel of old, who have “seen and experienced” God’s love more than any other people are to acknowledge that steadfast love in our lives so others will know. All true believers are to acknowledge the steadfast love of the LORD and live accordingly…and those who do are the ones who “fear the LORD” properly.
But we live in a world where NOTHING is permanent…and at the same time, the Bible tells us that God’s love is a steadfast love! This love is “Hesed” in the Hebrew and Agape’ in the Greek and is the kind of Love that only God can show towards those who are His because He is Love…it is one of His attributes…it is who He is. (Ex. 34:6) This steadfast love is full of definition…it is covenantal, eternal, actionable, immoveable, can never change, completely loyal always putting others first and freely given! And God goes one step further and says this eternal covenantal love “endures forever” adding a much needed emphasis so to catch us off guard and to stop us in our tracks every time we read this phrase. It is not a feeling or an emotion, in the way we describe these two terms, but rather it is an action on behalf of others in need. God loved us, chose us and made a covenant with us giving us a structure in which we are to live to His glory and as a blessing to a lost a dying world that needs the Gospel of Christ, all because of His steadfast love for all who are His.
I am convinced that He tells us this so often because you are a lot like me… when you are reading and you come to this phrase…you just keep on reading, because you have read it so often. But given the sheer number of times that God tells us this it should cause us to stop and ask ourselves, “What does this mean?” and I hope your answer is something like; This is unbelievable…and yet God says it so it is true! For we need to stop and consider God’s great love on a regular basis since so much in this life seeks to bring us down.
His steadfast love was revealed through the death, resurrection and ascension of His One and Only Son on behalf of all His Elect. The greatest act of love is to lay down one’s life as Christ did for you…and for me…so we should shout, “Let those who fear the Lord say, ‘His steadfast love endures forever.’” The point of this is that when we begin to verbalize it publically… maybe…just maybe… we will begin to believe it and the disconnect will become less and less… “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (I John 4:9-10)
It is in actually knowing, believing living out the fact that we are loved always and forever that assurance grows…that we are able to live out God’s covenant enabling us NOT to forget this simple truth, “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever”
I pray that you will take that time to stop today and consider God’s love and how we are to live as His Beloved!
God bless.
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
