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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Psalm 136.
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,
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 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 the strong hand
and an outstretched arm.
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, 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 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 heaven.
For his steadfast love endures forever.
Well, good
morning and welcome
everyone to Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Mike, one of our pastors here.
Really glad to be with you.
Hope you had a really wonderful
Thanksgiving.
Next weekend we kick off our advent, our
Christmas series, which will be wonderful.
This week we're just going to pause
on Thanksgiving weekend.
Just ask the question, hey,
what does it mean to be grateful?
How exactly do become people
full of more Thanksgiving?
And part of that comes from a story
Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke.
In the Gospel of Luke, there's a story
where Jesus will heal ten lepers,
and leprosy was a terminal skin condition.
So ten people literally marching their way
slowly to death.
And Jesus in his grace, and Jesus
in his power
as he has a habit of doing, heals them
completely, changes their life forever
with just one word.
Ten people are completely healed
and we learn one out of the ten
came back to say thank you.
Nine kept going, right.
Jesus is putting something.
On our attention, putting his finger
on something in each of our hearts
that two words
thank you often seem like too much, right?
If this math plays out,
and I think that it does 10% of you
in this room,
you have gratitude down, right?
So congratulations.
You can tune me out for the next
20 or so minutes.
90% of us, myself included.
Gratitude is a struggle.
I've been thinking, why is that?
Why are two words sometimes just too much?
It'd be easy to blame the snow, right?
I don't know when we went
from November to February, but we did.
And, here
we find ourselves in the middle of winter.
Why is gratitude so hard?
Could it be our culture? Right?
It seems like Black Friday extends itself
every year from one day to two days
to probably the whole season,
telling us again and again and again, you
you don't have enough, right?
You need more.
Hard to be grateful when you hear
all the time, hey, you need more.
It could be because of social media.
You can see all around you someone who has
a little bit of a better life.
At least appears to be
a little bit of a better life than you.
Someone has something
that you desperately want, even today.
Hard to be grateful
when someone has what you want.
Could be a lot of factors, right?
Some of you might say it's
it's actually simpler than that, right?
It's not about Black Friday. It's
not about the snow.
It's not about anything else.
If you knew my life right now,
if you knew my situation and my story,
the way my health is, where my family is,
my finances, my job,
all the things you would say I just.
I don't have much to be grateful for.
There's a lot of factors, a lot of reasons
why we can struggle with gratitude.
In Psalm 136, our passage
today gives us a different reason.
It suggests to us a different problem
for why we struggle with gratitude.
I put it this way
you'll see it on the screen.
It says it's our struggle with gratitude.
We look too much at what we have
or don't have in this life.
We look around us too much
and we look too little.
And what we have
and can never lose in God.
The struggle with gratitude
is where our attention is.
It's where our focus might be.
We look too much what we have
or don't have in this life,
and we look too little and what we have
and can never lose in God.
And so Psalm 136 is going to lead us
to change our focus,
to redirect our attention
even today, to do three things
to look up, to look back
and to look ahead.
That's how this Psalm is.
Even divide it up verses one through four.
We're going to look up verses
five through 25.
We're going to look back.
And then verses 26
we are going to look ahead.
And so if you are here
and you're looking for more Thanksgiving,
looking to be a person
marked by a deeper gratitude,
then these are the three things Psalm
136 leads us to do.
Let's start with look up.
Look up begins
in the first four verses of this Psalm.
Let me reread them for us
says, give thanks to the Lord,
for he is good, for his steadfast
love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of God
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.
Three times give thanks, give thanks,
give thanks.
Calling us to gratitude.
But notice
what the psalmist is directing us towards.
Give thanks to the God of God.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, and give
thanks to God.
And for what?
Right?
It's different
than how I might approach you.
Maybe you gathered with your family
or friends
this Thanksgiving
and you shared what you are thankful for.
All the reasons, right?
Thankful for family or friends or,
the Buckeyes
win all the things that we,
want to celebrate this weekend.
I'm Iowa Hawkeye fan,
so I'm very thankful that as Iowa Hawkeyes
and we reached eight wins,
which is a big deal if you're an Iowa
Hawkeye fan, might not be a big deal
if you're a Buckeyes fan.
We give thanks for circumstances, right?
And lots of circumstances
that we can be grateful for.
But that's not what the psalmist is
grateful for.
He's giving thanks to God.
He's giving
thanks for his character, right
circumstances as they can change, right?
Your health can change.
Finances can change, right?
Sports
circumstances can change all the time.
But the psalmist is giving thanks, giving
thanks to God and for his character,
not circumstance.
Two things highlighted in Psalm 136.
The first couple of verses. Right?
When you think about God
and you think about his character,
the psalmist gives us two words
to lean into, right?
The goodness of God
and then the steadfast love of God.
You see that in the first three verses,
God's goodness
and then his steadfast love.
And so first we give
thanks to God, because God is good
at the core of the personality
and the character of God.
God is good.
It almost seems like too weak of a word,
right?
Like if someone were to ask you, hey,
how was your Thanksgiving weekend?
And then you said, yeah, it was good.
You would say, hey, I liked it,
but it probably could have been
a little bit better, right?
We use goodness and it implies
a little bit of imperfection.
But when the Bible uses
the term, goodness about God implies
no imperfection, right?
Goodness in its purest form,
a perfect goodness,
a pure goodness
without stain or sin or flaw.
No bad days, no bad moods.
God is perfectly good.
He can do no wrong to you.
We give thanks because God is good
the second we give thanks.
Because God is love, right? You can't.
You can't miss it.
In this Psalm,
even in the in the reading of it,
the phrase steadfast love repeats again
and again and again 26 times in 26
verses,
wanting us not to miss one central thing
about the character of God
that God is a God of love.
It's a steadfast love, a strong
love, a heavy duty love.
This past summer, I went
to the beach with my family,
and there was one night that we went out
to watch the sunset and the sun
was just kind of going over the water.
Just beautiful, right?
If you've been there,
colors are just popping and it was great.
Except for the bugs, right?
The bugs were were awful
and so bad that it kept our heads down.
Right.
So the sunset is here and
our heads are down because of the bugs.
And so we missed it, right?
We couldn't look up because of how
we were distracted by the bugs.
And on some level,
the color combination of God's character,
his goodness and love is meant
to overwhelm us, to stun us in its beauty
and its perfection and its glory.
But life has a way of keeping our head
down, right?
Bugs just seem to be everywhere,
especially at this time of year.
Schedules are full of things to do,
presents to buy all the things,
and our heads just are down.
In Psalm 136 just says, look up.
Let me take care of the bugs,
just for a moment,
so you could look up and see the goodness
and the splendor
and the perfection
of the character of God.
For the goodness of God is perfect,
and the love of God is strong.
We give thanks for the character of God.
Second, gratitude flows from looking back.
We look up and see his character.
We look back and we see God's story.
Maybe a week or two ago,
I stumble across an old high school
photo of mine.
And, if you are a fan of Home Alone,
it was a buzz your girlfriend, Wolf,
kind of moment.
I was ninth grade on the soccer team,
and I was trying
to be a tough ninth grader,
which doesn't work well for me now.
And didn't work well then, right?
I was 15 going on nine,
which is pretty much how I look right now.
So it wasn't great.
My guess is if you have pictures
that you look back on, you realize
they're not that great.
You have a wolf kind of moment
and you are so glad, like
I am, that I have changed, right?
You dress differently, you look
differently, your hair differently.
All the things right.
To be human is to look back on yourself
and to be so,
so thankful that you have changed.
In Psalm 136, we're going to look back
on old pictures of God
and be so,
so glad that he has stayed the same.
In this psalm we see three pictures
and then I'm going to add a fourth.
We're going to go back in the photo
album of God and see three old pictures.
Then I'm going to add a fourth picture.
The first picture that we see
is the picture of creation.
It's in verses five through nine.
I'm going to read one
snapshot for us, verses five and six.
It says to him who by understanding
made the heavens, for his steadfast
love endures forever.
To him who made the great light,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
To him
who spread out the earth above the waters,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
When you go back to the beginning
and you go back to creation,
you see that in the beginning
there was God, right?
The Bible holds out
that the world didn't happen by accident.
But God is the creator
and the maker of everything,
including you made the sun and the moon,
the stars and the night,
the mountains and the rivers, the valleys.
God made everything.
And we can talk a lot about how God
is the Creator and Maker of everything.
But one thing that struck me
the furthest back that you can go.
Page one.
Sentence one.
You see God in the beginning,
and in the beginning you notice
one thing in the picture
the steadfast love of God.
The first picture of creation
shows the steadfast love of God.
The second picture is the one of Exodus.
Look with me. Verses ten and 11.
It says this
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.
The story of the axis is this amazing
story in the second book of the Bible
called Exodus, God's people
Israel, are enslaved in Egypt.
They've been suffering
and enslaved for 400 years.
And then God raises up Moses
to rescue them, to free them.
And how he does it does.
It is through, this verse to him
who struck down the firstborn of Egypt.
You see, God
rescued his people through judgment
and through sacrifice,
which is how God's rescue always works.
He rescues through judgment.
He rescues through sacrifice. He.
There was a night
where God came and told his people
that I'm
going
to strike down every firstborn in Egypt,
which is simply terrifying in my judgment,
for their sin.
In my rebellion,
I'm going to strike down every firstborn.
What I want for you to do
is to sacrifice a perfect animal,
place
the blood of the lamb over your door,
and when I pass through that night,
I will pass over
every single house
that has blood on the door.
My judgment will pass over them,
and my judgment will land.
It will land on every house
without the blood.
That's exactly what happened.
I was part of God's rescue.
This is a bit of a side tangent,
but if you ever wonder
where is the safe place
to go from the judgment of God?
The story of the scriptures says
there's one thing.
There's one place you can find shelter
underneath the blood of the lamb.
And we'll get back to that in a minute.
But we see here
in creation, love is from the beginning,
in Exodus and God's
rescue of his people in their suffering.
It was the steadfast love of God again.
And then the third picture we see
is of the Promised Land, right?
Creation, Exodus,
and now the Promised Land.
He, God, is moving his people from Egypt,
and he's taken them to a new home,
a new place,
a new place to be the promised land.
And it sounds wonderful,
but the journey there was not so simple.
It was not so simple for two reasons.
The first reason the move
or the transition from Egypt
to the promised land was not simple
is because of the people.
When you read the stories,
you will see that they are
grumpy and whining and complaining,
and it's the sin of the people
that gives them 40 years
in the wilderness.
They just don't trust God.
They just don't believe in God.
They just don't want to follow God.
And the second reason why the journey is
not so simple
is because the enemies against God's
people, it's their sin is the first,
and then it's the enemies of God's people,
which is the second.
I'm not sure if you noticed this,
but there's a lot of kings
and rulers named in this song.
Let me show you.
Starting in verse 17, we see kings
mentioned to him who struck down
great kings and killed mighty kings,
and then calls them out by name.
Verse 19.
Sihon king of the Amorites,
and OG king of Bashan.
Right.
You see this list of kings, list of people
who are trying to thwart God's people.
Stop what God is doing.
Right on some level.
If you are an Israelite,
if you are God's people
listening to this Psalm,
you would have stories that would take
you back to the moment where you recognize
that these were actual threats to us.
We were facing legitimate danger.
There was fear
because these kings were present.
And what the Psalm
reminds is that each time a threat came,
each time a new enemy presented itself
against God's people, it was the steadfast
love of God that led them in triumph,
that God was the victor.
Time and time again, three pictures
and two things we just can't miss.
When you read through Psalm 136.
First, you can't miss
what God's steadfast love has done.
It was his love
that gave life in creation.
It was his love
that rescued in the Exodus,
and it was his love
that triumphed in the Promised Land.
We can't miss what his love did, and
we can't miss what his love endured.
That his love endured,
the suffering of his people in Egypt,
his love endured
the sin of his people in the wilderness,
and his love endured the enemies of God's
people on the way to the Promised Land.
And this takes me to my fourth picture,
right?
Because the story doesn't end
with the Promised Land.
The Bible story moves to one
climactic masterpiece of a picture
where we see the steadfast love of God
again in a beautiful, grand way.
All these themes coming together,
which, of course, is the cross of Jesus,
because there was a moment
in human history where a Jewish
man named Jesus,
the Son of God, was led up to a cross
just outside the city
of Jerusalem, crucified by God's enemies.
The Roman soldiers.
And three days later, God
rose him from the dead
and mean, you look back on the cross.
There's two things that we can't miss
about the steadfast love of God.
That at the cross, this is where new life
is given through the death of his son.
That's why the Bible calls Christians
literally new creations.
The steadfast
love of God at the cross rescued us
through judgment and through sacrifice.
Right?
It was Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God.
The judgment did not pass over him,
so it would pass over all
who took shelter under him.
And it was God's love who triumphed
on the cross over sin and Satan and death.
How great is the steadfast
love of God, gives life and creation
endures our sin, our suffering,
our enemies, and endures the cross.
Gratitude comes from looking up
at the character of God,
looking back at the actions of God,
and then looking ahead
in our own stories.
Forrest Gump is a classic movie,
came out in the mid 90s,
which seems like a long time ago already.
It stars Tom Hanks playing
this quirky man named Forrest Gump.
And if you've seen this movie,
you recognize he just he finds himself in
just extraordinary circumstances
time and time again.
And at one point in the movie,
he decides to go for a run
and doesn't have a great plan.
He decides he's going to go for a run,
and he just keeps running and running
and running and running.
And he ends up running for three years,
two months,
14 days and 16 hours.
And then he stops,
he says, I think I'm pretty tired now.
I think I'll go home.
And on some level,
I wonder how many of us view
God's love in a similar way.
At some point,
we're just waiting God to stay.
I'm pretty tired right now.
I'm pretty tired of you right now.
I think I'll go home.
I think I'll stop loving you.
I have a four year old son, Casey,
and a few months back
he asked me one question.
You say data,
do you love me when I disobey?
Do you love me when I disobey?
What was he asking?
He was asking me how.
Dad, how strong is your love?
And the fear he had
was that the strength of his sin
was greater than the strength of my love.
Why in the world
does this Psalm repeat the
same phrase 26 times?
26 times?
When was the last time
someone told you anything?
3 or 4 times outside of us
telling you to go to 8:00 service?
But anyways.
Because it's not sinking in
for some reason,
there is a clog that we have,
and I'm deeply convinced
that the greatest fear in the human heart
is that we will lose
the love of God's heart,
the greatest fear that each of us
have,
that at some point we will lose the love
that is in God's heart,
especially in our lowest moments.
If you are here
and you find yourself in a season
of suffering like that in Egypt,
you are probably wondering, I wonder,
I wonder what God's love endure this.
If you find yourself in a season
like the wilderness
and you are caught up in sin again,
that is entangle you.
I'm sure you're wondering.
I wonder if God's love will endure this
if you were even facing
significant enemies of God.
If you're under attack again, say,
if you're even looking the enemy of death
and it is coming close for you
or a loved one, you're probably wondering,
Will the love of God last forever
or just a long time?
It is the most common
fear of the human heart
to doubt the love that is in God's heart.
And I'm convinced the reason 26 times
this phrase, steadfast love is repeated.
It's repeated so much
because it is believed by
you and me so little.
A few years back
there was a hurricane, Hurricane Ike,
and it hit the state of Texas really hard.
And I found this picture
that's really stuck with me.
And it really captures Psalm 136.
You see the devastated
the entire community.
Every single house
is absolutely demolished.
But there is one house that remains,
and I can't think of a better picture
of the steadfast
love of God for us.
If you are in a season
and you're wondering
if the winds of your sin are strong enough
to blow over the love of God,
the answer is no.
If you're in a season of suffering
where the waves just seem like
they are too tall, they're going to knock
over the house of God's love.
The answer is no.
The steadfast love of God.
It endures all suffering.
It endures all sin.
It endures all storms.
The weight of gratitude,
the weight of gratitude.
It's not by looking around us at the life
that we have
or don't have, by looking at our God,
look up at his character
and to realize that it is his goodness
that is strong and his love
that is perfect.
We look back and his actions, and
we look back at every old picture of God.
And we realize from the beginning
through today,
he has only acted in one way
with his steadfast love.
And so, more than anything else,
you can know.
I can know in Christ
Jesus there is absolutely nothing
that can take us away
from the love of God.
So let me end with verse 26
and tell you for the 27th time, give
thanks to the God of heaven,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, thank you for
this Psalm.
And, I pray that
in this morning, God, you would
you would surface our fear in our life
that that somehow, in some way,
your love will stop,
that at some point,
you will just grow tired of us.
And God,
thank you that we know with confidence
that it is in and through Jesus
that we have your love, God,
and to know you personally,
that we can trust that we will experience
your love eternally.
I pray that you would cement that
in our hearts and our minds.
This Thanksgiving. In Jesus name, Amen.