11/27/2024

I love Psalm 145.  We read it last Friday in our daily Bible reading, and I quoted it on Sunday. It is pure praise from start to finish! And why? The entire psalm is a celebration of Who God is: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (145:8).  

That should sound familiar to you; I quote it every Sunday. But I’m not just quoting Psalm 145 – this verse goes all the way back to Mt. Sinai. On Mt. Sinai, Moses made this audacious request, “Show me your glory, I pray.” Notice how God answered Moses: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But. . . you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” 

Moses asks to see God’s glory, but God shows Moses his goodness. 

The scene is unforgettable:  God covers Moses with his hand in the cleft of a rock, and processes by him, proclaiming.

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. . . .”

God is telling Moses who He is and will be. Yes, God is glorious, but it is through God’s goodness that we really see and understand God’s glory. And, it is through God’s goodness that God will relate to His people. No other god could ever be described as “A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” These words echo all throughout Israel’s history, especially in the book of Psalms. 

Most often, we read these words of God when the people are going through difficult times, as if they are saying, “Things are not going well! Please be who you’d say you’d be!” For example, in Psalm 86, the psalmist prays, “O God, the insolent rise up against me; a band of ruffians seeks my life, and they do not set you before them” (86:14) The psalmist hasn’t done anything wrong, and cries out at the injustice of his persecutors, reminding God of his own words: “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me. . . “ (86:15-16).  

On one occasion, God’s words are the reason someone disobeys him! In the book of Jonah, the whiny prophet explains why he ran off to Tarshish: “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (4:2). Jonah ran away because he knew God would forgive them. Good grief . . . 

So, we’ve seen God’s words quoted in a lament, and in an excuse. Here, in Psalm 145, the psalmist quotes them in praise. Psalm 145 is a celebration of a faithful world where we need not be anxious or fearful because the faithful world was made by a faithful God. 

The Lord is faithful in all his words, 

and gracious in all his deeds.

The Lord upholds all who are falling, 

and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you, 

and you give them their food in due season.

You open your hand, 

satisfying the desire of all living things.

The Lord is just in all his ways, 

and kind in all his doings.

The Lord is near to all who call on him, 

to all who call on him in truth.

He fulfills the desire of all who fear him;

 he also hears their cry, and saves them.

The Lord watches over all who love him. . .

These are not words the Psalmist comes up with after arguing with the rabbis in the temple all day. No, these words flow from the psalmist’s experiences of God's daily faithfulness. Day after day, the psalmist sees evidence of God’s faithfulness in the simple fact of having the necessities of life provided. There’s a sense of childlike trust in this psalm, like the way children take for granted their parents will meet all their needs, a trust that’s learned through the concrete ways good parents show their loving care for their children. God is faithful and his world is reliable. 

In the middle of these verses, the psalmist gives us a beautiful table-grace: 

“The eyes of all look to you, 

and you give them their food in due season.

You open your hand, 

satisfying the desire of every living thing.”

The Lord is not just the God of the Israelites; God’s faithful care extends to all. 

The words of Jesus we read Sunday are especially appropriate: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. . . But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?. . . For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:29-33). If you read the entire passage, you’ll see Jesus telling us four times “do not worry.” We might be “of little faith” but our God is faithful! 

The psalmist spells it out for us. We can live in this world without being anxious or fearful because of God’s actions. The Lord is faithful and gracious; the Lord upholds and raises up; the Lord gives; the Lord satisfies; the Lord is just; the Lord is kind; the Lord is near; the Lord fulfills; the Lord hears; the Lord watches . . . and notice there’s not a single request in this prayer – just the joy of living in a faithful world overseen by a faithful God!

And notice also, how many times the word “all” appears! God is completely faithful. There is not a situation in life in which we cannot trust him. And the world that God has created for us to live in is reliable as well. 

I heard someone refer to November as the “season of gratitude.” It kinda made me laugh that we had to have a “season,” but at least a season keeps us from forgetting entirely. If we just stop and look around us, every season is filled with ample evidence of God’s care and faithfulness. Truly, “the one who calls you is faithful.” Great is thy faithfulness! 

Wishing you a blessed Thanksgiving!

Blessings! 

Pastor Terry