1.
Please pray with
me. May the words of my mouth and the
meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message is entitled, “Remember Steadfast Love,” and it’s taken from Psalm 98:3, dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
One of the ways
we remember or memorize things is to repeat them over and over. Some of you may
still be able to recite a poem that you memorized in grade school. The best
example of this is the way we learned the Six
Chief Parts of Luther’s Small Catechism. We kept saying small sections over
and over until we could recite the whole part without peeking. It sounds as if
God is having his people do this very thing in Psalm 136. There are 26 verses,
and the second half of every verse is “for
his steadfast love endures forever.” The first part of each verse covers
everything from the creation of the world to the exodus from Egypt to victory
over enemies to the giving of daily bread. But the second half is always the
same. The response to all of those actions of God is for people to say, “for his steadfast love endures forever.”
The people needed to say that over and over so that they would know it by heart
and remember it.
3.
But what were
they remembering? The word we’ve translated as “steadfast love” is like the word “remember.” It’s a key word in the Old Testament that is packed with
meaning. The word in Hebrew is “he-sed.” It’s used 248 times. Sometimes
it’s translated “steadfast love,” as
it is all those times in Psalm 136 or in the verse we’re reading as our text, Ps
98:3: “He has remembered his steadfast
love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have
seen the salvation of our God.” It can also be translated “mercy,” “kindness,” “loving kindness,”
or “goodness.” There seems to be so
much meaning packed into that one Hebrew word that we can’t find just one
English word to express it all. But God knew what it was, and God could express
all the intricacies of love. His love. His steadfast love. God
Remembers His Steadfast Love So That the Whole Earth Sees His Salvation.
4.
Since there are
so many English words that can be used to translate this one Hebrew word, he-sed, some Bibles always use “steadfast love” when it’s from God to
people. They use other words when it’s from people to God or from one person to
another. It’s pretty easy to understand why. Human love isn’t steadfast very
often. But, when it is, it’s a wonderful thing. The best example may be in the
Book of Ruth. Naomi praised her 2 widowed daughters-in-law, saying, “May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you
have dealt with the dead and with me” (Ruth 1:8). That’s quite something
for a mother-in-law, to compare a person’s goodness, kindness, and steadfast
love to the goodness, kindness, and steadfast love of the Lord.
5.
Not rare at all
are words like Prov 20:6: “Many a man
proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?” Or Is
40:6: “All flesh is grass, and all its
beauty is like the flower of the field.” There the word “beauty” is the one translated as “steadfast love.” Permanence and strength
and steadfastness aren’t things we usually think of when we see a pretty
flower. We know that all too well, the pretty flower will start to dry up, and
its beauty will be gone. That’s the way it was with God’s people. The people of
God forgot God’s love and didn’t see the salvation that God always intended. Hear
what Jeremiah says: “I have forgotten
what happiness is… Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and
the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me” (Lam
3:17, 19–20). Wormwood and gall are some of the bitterest things you can
mention. They remind the prophet of the bitter taste of sin.
6.
But all this
negativity turns out to be the key to turning things around. This bitterness
leads to repentance. So, Jeremiah does remember. The steadfast love of God is
what causes him to remember. When hit with bitterness, Jeremiah had to know
that there was something sweet… something steadfast… something that wouldn’t
change… something that wasn’t in the prophet, but something that was in God. So,
remembering his sin, he’s turned to the love of God. That love doesn’t stop.
So, the “bowed down” Jeremiah is
lifted up. “But this I call to mind, and
therefore I have hope” (Lam 3:21). “Call
to mind” sounds like another way to say “remember.” What does he remember? He remembers the steadfast love
of the Lord. That happens in Lam. 3:22-23: “The
steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they
are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” God’s steadfast love
calls people to repent. God Remembers His Steadfast Love So That the
Whole Earth Sees His Salvation.
7.
What about us?
While God remembers his steadfast love toward us, do we respond with steadfast
love toward God and toward others? If you look up the definition of love in
almost any dictionary, the first thing listed will likely have something to do
with “a strong emotion.” The emotion
of love can be a wonderful thing. But, emotions aren’t what you’d call
steadfast! They come and go. The strong emotion of love is seen in couples
coming to be married. It’s completely unseen later on when one of them calmly,
not tearfully, but calmly tells the pastor that she or he is leaving the other
because “I just don’t love him or her
anymore.”
8.
So much for the
dictionary. What does the Bible say about love? Jesus said it: “Greater love has no one than this, that
someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). While it’s great
when love is an emotion, it must be an action. Love is a sacrifice. Love is sacrificing one’s life. It may be a
soldier jumping on a grenade to save his buddies. It may be a person pushing
someone out of the way of a speeding car but being killed himself. But those
are rare. The everyday sacrifice is a wife yielding… setting aside her life so
that her husband’s life can go forward. It’s the husband yielding in return . .
. also setting aside his life so that his wife’s life can go forward. That love
can have some strong emotions with it as well, but when the emotions come and
go, the sacrificial part stays. When we consider that kind of love, we have to
confess that our love isn’t that way. But, God causes us to remember the love
of Christ that is both emotional and sacrificial. God
Remembers His Steadfast Love So That the Whole Earth Sees His Salvation.
9.
The reading of
the Passion history—the things that happened to Jesus in his suffering, death,
and resurrection—begins with these words: “Now
before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). Jesus loved to the end of his
life. He loved to the ends of the earth. He loved to all generations. That’s
steadfast love.
10.
The word in the
New Testament that comes closest to the word in the Psalms for “steadfast love” is the word, charis in Greek, which we translate as,
“grace.” (Charis is where we get our word Charity
from). Grace is from God. The word “grace”
is also packed full of meaning. Grace is undeserved. God’s grace endures
forever. By grace, people believe clearly the salvation of God: “so that in the coming ages he might show the
immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by
grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is
the gift of God” (Eph 2:7–8).
11.
The whole earth
includes so many people that we can’t even count them all. But, don’t overlook
the fact that the whole earth includes one person: you. When God remembers his steadfast love, he loves to the end of
each of your lives as well. We see God’s salvation in Jesus’ sacrifice. He
makes sure that you see his salvation. The last words Jesus spoke before
ascending into heaven were: “But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the
earth” (Acts 1:8). There are a lot of places where they make jokes about
that place being the end of the earth, or “this
isn’t the end of the earth, but you can see it from here.” Well, wherever
you are or wherever you go, God sees you and through the Gospel has made you
see his salvation in Christ Jesus. God Remembers His Steadfast Love So That the
Whole Earth Sees His Salvation.
12.
It may be hard to
translate some words in the Bible with just one word. But we know steadfast
love when we see it—in Jesus. What we have a hard time putting into words, God
puts in us. “But the fruit of the Spirit
is love” (Gal 5:22). Amen.
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