David Burson - Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Wednesday Bible Study featuring David Burson.

Transcription:

Okay, turn to first Chronicles chapter 16, please. First Chronicles 16.

I've been reading slowly through 1 Chronicles, recently. And I came across this verse in first Chronicles 16, verse 41. This is after David moved the ark, and then so he had some stuff happening back at the old tabernacle and and other things happening at the place where you had the ark in Jerusalem.

"And with them were Heman and Jeduthun, and the rest who were chosen, who were designated by name, to give thanks to the Lord, because his lovingkindness is everlasting."

I was just thinking about that. And especially if you read through it fast and don't think about it much. It sort of seems like, "Wait a minute!" This is a little unreasonable, perhaps, and unwarranted extravagance! Choose to designate people by name, and make it their job to give thanks to the Lord. And it's not like we have a lengthy list here of things to thank the Lord for daily. We have one reason they were chosen by name and given the job of giving thanks to the Lord, for one reason is his, his lovingkindness is everlasting.

I think the significance of God's everlasting lovingkindness is probably greater than we can actually grasp. Really, apart from God's everlasting lovingkindness, our image of God is a satanic caricature. Maybe something like the Muslim idea of God, God's everlasting lovingkindness, means, everything. And really means everything, no matter how far short we fall in appreciating it! And I thought, just of a few thoughts about God's everlasting lovingkindness.

Meaning everything when we are enjoying life, when things are going well.

Right now, for the most part, things are going pretty well for me. Things at work are doing pretty well. The kids are great. I've got a great wife, the house is standing. There's a lot of good things going on. James 1:17 reminds us, "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above." Every gift is an expression of God's everlasting, loving kindness. And just as we train our kids to say, "Thank you," when they receive a gift, (and we can get a little embarrassed when they forget that) I think it's a good idea for us to discern when we are receiving gifts from God because of his everlasting lovingkindness.

To discern that, and then of course, to thank him. Respond in thanks the way David had this setup here in first Chronicles.

There's a couple different ways (we've mentioned this before) but there's a couple different ways we can thank somebody for something. One is we get a gift, and we're very excited about the gift, and we say Yes, thank you, and we're wrapped up in the gift. And when you give gifts to little kids at Christmas, that makes you feel pretty good. They really liked your gift. That's great, you gave it for them.

But there is a a greater way of saying, "Thank you," and one is to really appreciate the gift, and see through the gift to the giver. And to thank the giver, and putting more value on the giver than on the gift and truly seeing the gift as a as an expression of the character of the giver.

So when we're thanking God, seeing gifts as an example of his everlasting, loving kindness, our focus can be on thanking God as opposed to simply enjoying the gift but—not saying don't enjoy the gift—but thanking thanking God Himself. And really, it's a matter of where our focus is.

Some people do this with God as well, especially if they think of God as a, getting ready to judge you. If that's their concept of God is he's going to smack me and so I'm just going to try to fly under the radar here so He didn't notice.

My brother Steven up in Minneapolis used to live in the second worst neighborhood in all of Minneapolis. And he decided he was going to provide a outdoor cookout steak dinner for the whole neighborhood. And anybody who wanted to come was free to come and eat steaks and hang out. Was it hamburgers? Okay, it's growing to steaks. Next time I tell the story, who knows what will be: lobster and shrimp.

Okay, well any case he watched one lady coming up and, very furtively, snuck over to the grill, snitched a couple burgers and hurried off, you know, and kind of hiding, smuggling away her, her two burgers that she managed to take back to her family. you know. And It's just a sad picture of here. They were given free, she could have had a lot more than that if she'd hung around and just enjoy the time, right?

But some people receive gifts from God that way. It's a good thing, but it can't even enjoy it as much as if you really are appreciating who is giving it to you. So as we receive gifts from God, it's not a matter of we're going to try to enjoy this quietly so that God doesn't notice. It's, no, God's wanting to give us good gifts. So that's, he's giving them, he is doing it. And we just need to recognize that and enjoy them.

Yeah, it was not a good neighborhood. But.

So God's everlasting loving kindness really means everything, when things are going well also, because otherwise, God's gifts are rather empty if we don't understand the spirit in which they're given in and who is giving them to us.

God's everlasting love and kindness means everything when we are suffering as well. If you remember, September 11, 2001, when the towers came down, and many people were very upset at that time, it was a very… a lot of people were pretty shaky in a lot of ways, it really rocked their worlds.

And I don't know if you remember, but since that was September, shortly after was going to be Thanksgiving, and there was a call that went out that we need to cancel Thanksgiving this year. There's nothing to give thanks for well, that call was rejected emphatically ,thankfully, many Christians and I believe others as well, spoke up very loudly that no, in suffering we need to give thanks more than at any other time. That's what we really need. I don't know if you all remember that.

But I remember because it really struck me when it happened. Without God's everlasting lovingkindness, present suffering, just points to the futility, the worthlessness of our existence. And it's a foretaste of more suffering to come.

But when we are suffering, and we understand God's everlasting lovingkindness, we know that God causes all things, even our present suffering to work for good to us who have responded to his outpouring of love. Romans 8:28. We know that nothing can separate us from his love and that we live now in victory, even in suffering.

Just like to read Romans eight, starting in verse 31, to the end of the chapter, and as I do consider God's everlasting lovingkindness and this passage, Romans 8:31.

"What then shall we say to these things, if God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who was the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who was at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress? Or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Just as it is written for your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us."

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creative thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."

God's loving kindness means everything, when we contemplate the future as well. And I'll just read Revelation 21. We look at this very often and I think, appropriately so. In verse three, Revelation 21:3. "And I heard a loud voice from throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he will dwell among them, and they shall be his people, and God Himself will be among them. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain, the first things have passed away."

If his love means everything now whether we are enjoying life or suffering, how much more when the whole point is finally realized, when God's everlasting love and kindness is brought to full fruition of what His his goal has always been. It'll mean everything. That ultimate experience of fellowship with Him, and in his everlasting loving kindness, that will be everything to us.

So, my conclusion is no, it's not unreasonable to assign a group of people to give thanks to the Lord, and for just that one reason that his lovingkindness is everlasting. What would have been unreasonable is to make that assignment and then go live your own life, and forget about God's everlasting love and kindness.

That would not be reasonable at all. So I was just thinking, I remember Psalm 1:36 has the refrain: "His lovingkindness is everlasting." May that refrain draw us also to a perpetual thanksgiving. It can be a refrain in our own lives in every circumstance: His loving kindness is everlasting. No matter what the situation now and no matter where we're thinking about the future, so we can give him thanks for that, which are my thoughts for this evening.