"I will sing of the LORD'S unfailing love forever! Young and old will hear of Your faithfulness" -- Psalm 89:1
Prayerfully let us discover some unfamiliar spiritual territories of gratitude as we are guided by Psalm 89:1
Psalm 89:1 is a response of worship to the good God
Please take note of the word "response", meaning the act of gratitude and worship is a response to God who invites us to Himself! We are the responder not the initiator of worship! This puts us in our proper place as recipients of favor not authors of it. As God reveals who He is, we respond in worship! And such an imperfect response to a perfect God is accepted by God when it is done in faith!
Gratitude is not a religious word scripted to flatter someone. Gratitude is the response of a grace-awakened heart. Like the Samaritan leper who gave thanks; he may not have the religious background on how to do about the prescribed liturgy; he may not be qualified if gratitude is measured by Jewish blood, yet Jesus understood and accepted his praise because it was a response of worship!
"I will sing of the Lord's unfailing love, forever!"
A song of praise about God's mercy
It is not a song about my misery or my greatness; it is about God's mercy. It is good to remember and be reminded that Worship is about God and his attributes not about our achievements and pain. The good things that God does invite us to worship the One who is truly merciful! The theme of the song is God's mercy!
A song of praise about God's mercy is expressed not repressed
One of the difficult health protocols to follow in this Covid-19 captivity is the restrictions on congregational singing fearing that it will spread the virus further because praise is not meant to be hidden it is to be expressed.
This is a humbling lesson that no matter how we want to sing today we are restricted by health protocols. Shall we revolt and fight for our rights and sing anyway because we are obeying God? Or shall we repent and humbly comply?
There is a great need for us to repent over those times that the prohibitions were not there but the reluctance in our hearts was abundant. Rather than provoke potential clashes over the ugly politics that polluted authentic worship, let us humbly postpone our eagerness to sing until all our motives are purged from all political biases and dogmatic residues.
Can we still sing of the mercies of the Lord? Yes, maybe not so much from our mouths but more so humbly from our hearts!
Singing God's praise is pure gratitude to God and not to be mixed with the impurities of the politics of proving who is right, rather it is about the mercy of God! There are times God stops the singing of the mouth so we can learn to sing from the heart! The Babylonian Captivity somehow postponed the free expression of congregational loud singing, like Covid-19 captivity denied us of gathering as a church to sing freely, yet the true spirit of gratitude overcomes the pressure of merely performing or proving something humbly and truly giving thanks from the heart and then from our mouths!
Singing of God's praise with a grateful heart is not afraid to respond when we are repressed by political authorities, yet it is also not proud to prove anything and sing for the sake of just proving that we are free.
Singing of the mercies of the Lord is a profound admiration of the powerless, giving glory to the powerful One, even in most times we don't hear a sound from the mouth. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord that are sung to the Lord, and the Lord knows our hearts!
Psalm 89:1 is a redemptive understanding of the mercy of God
A redemptive understanding of God's love or God's mercy leads the worshiper to define mercy and love using God's dictionary not just quoting popular vocabulary. We begin to see God's love and mercy not in the lens of our personal agenda but through the lens of who God is. From the attributes of God revealed in the Scriptures, the Spirit of God convicts us to give up our personal definition of what love and mercy is.
"I will sing of the unfailing love of the Lord"
We need to be sure when we quote God's love and mercy, we are on the same page of what God meant by love and mercy. We will sing the wrong song if we define mercy using our human standards and forcing God to be under it. It will truly be spiritually liberating if we see mercy and love from God's view. I think this is where the Psalmist is coming from:
The mercy and unfailing love of God that brings deliverance in his time and in his terms.
The mercy and unfailing love of God that brings discipline (being disciplined by God is mercy).
The mercy and unfailing love of God that allows delays and denials (God's answers of no and wait sometimes are the best answers to our prayers).
Do we understand mercy and unfailing love of God as God would?
Psalm 89:1 is a real surrender of human vulnerabilities to God's faithfulness
"Young and old will hear of Your faithfulness"
From the beginning of our discourse I already said that gratitude is the mixture of many issues and one of the mixtures of true gratitude is the reality of human weaknesses.
These obvious vulnerabilities and many inconsistencies of our lives have graciously become a vehicle by which worshipers run and take refuge in the faithfulness of God! As Paul liberatingly stated to Timothy "If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is" (2 Timothy 2:13)
In whatever season of life, we are all in youth or old age we are still vulnerable and because our weaknesses are real, our surrender to God is needed. We all run to the tower of God's faithfulness and find refuge there! "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord; with my mouth will I make known thy...
Psalm 89:1 is the review and preview of our hope in God restored
"Your faithfulness through all generations"
We do not find the restoration of a God-filled hope until we surrender all no matter how long it takes, surrender all, I mean all our false and selfish expectations. As we learn to surrender God gives His surprises! As Pastor Swindoll would say "No surrender, no surprise". Our journey of singing his mercies is also a journey that leads us to find the true source of a God-filled hope. We find ourselves even in the midst of Covid-19 captivity and for them Babylonian captivity drinking from these wells of hope. We don't find a God-filled hope in comparing situations, we find hope in calling on the same God. Here we find people from the past and people from the present drinking in these wells of hope:
Our hope is restored in the presence of God enjoyed through prayer
Our hope is restored claiming the promises of God by faith
Our hope is restored by seeing the purposes of God through obedience
Don't forget these lessons:
Psalm 89:1 is a response of worship to the good God.
Psalm 89:1 is a redemptive understanding of the mercy of God.
Psalm 89:1 is a real surrender of human vulnerabilities to God's faithfulness.
Psalm 89:1 is the review and preview of our hope in God restored.