May 4

Psalm 136.

There is a story about a monastery where the requirement is that you must maintain perpetual silence. The actual rule is that after every two years you are allowed to speak 2 words.
A young initiate, who had spent his first 2 years at the monastery, was called in by his superior to make his first 2 word statement. “Bed Hard” he said.
2 years later he was called in and his 2 words were, “Food Bad.”
After the next two years the superior called him in and the young fellow said. “I quit!”
The superior looked at him and said, “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. All you've done since you've been here is complain.”

Do some critical thinking with me. In the history of the planet, what nation has experienced the most affluence and prosperity? What society of people have had the most benefits, most health care, greatest access to food, clothes, sanitary living conditions, employment opportunities, political freedom, religious freedom, education, running water, recreation, and leisure time in the history of the planet? If you guessed right here in the USA you are correct.

Yet in the midst of this prosperity, what most characterizes our culture? We are a people who are given to complaining and whining. It is so easy for us to focus on all the things that are wrong. The scriptures make it very clear that people of faith should be thankful people. There are 140 references about giving thanks to God in the Bible.

Psalm 136 is a chorus that was sung at the Dedication of Solomon's Temple. Jehoshaphat also had this chorus sung on the day he put the choir in front of the army as they went into battle. In Jewish tradition this psalm is often known as the Great Hallel (The Great Psalm of Praise). This popular chorus was possibly #1 on the charts.

We are given multiple reasons for being thankful people in this Psalm, the nature of God, the acts of God, the creation of God, the deliverance of God but there is one theme that is mentioned 26 times. 26 times we are reminded of God’s love. Why would God go to such extremes to communicate this truth of his love? Because there is something within us that resists his love, let me tell you what that something is. We know how we really are on the inside. We know that in our hearts we are complainers and whiners at times. We know sometimes we aren't kind, loving people. We know that sometimes we don't forgive people who hurt us. Or that many times we live in outward rebellion against God. We know that many times we act like spoiled brats before God.
We know that if we were God we would have abandoned the whole human race 1000's of years ago.
The bottom line is that we know if we were God, we wouldn’t love us.

This is why we need to hear 26 times that God does love us. God's love is not human love. God's love is divine love. God's love is a bold love that will endure forever and nothing can separate us from it.

It’s like God has handcuffed himself to us in love. And only he holds the key. We don’t need to win his love. We already have it. And since we can’t win it, we can’t lose it. Our rebellion cannot diminish his love. Our goodness cannot increase it either. Our faith does not earn it anymore than our stupidity jeopardizes it. God doesn't love us less if we fail. He doesn't love us more if we succeed. His love endures forever.

Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Had God not said those words, we would be fools for believing them. But since he said them, we would be fools for not believing them.

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