Title: Song of the Goodness of God
Scripture: Psalm 118
Speaker: Mike Rattin
Take your Bibles this morning, turn to Psalm 118. It's on page 623 in your pew Bible. For a time, we're going to read along as we go through the message this morning rather than up front.
But let me ask you a question this morning. Do you have a psalm? Or a psalm? Do you have a particular one, a particular psalm or hymn that comforts you, instructs you, orders you? A psalm or song that brings a shout of joy rushing from your heart when God rescues you in an unusual way? Maybe your psalm compels you to run to God in trial or refuge and hope. A Psalm 23 kind of psalm that moves from fear and sorrow to rest and peace and comfort in the shepherd's care.
A psalm that sends you a mad dash to the goodness of God. Psalm 118 was and is such a song to many. Augustine, an early church father, spent 25 years preaching through all 150 psalms and saved Psalm 118 to the end.
And it took him another 32 sermons to complete Psalm 118. He called it a prophetic psalm of the church celebrating victory over persecution through Christ who is the cornerstone. And I would add it is one gloriously tough psalm to do justice in one service.
It was Martin Luther who called this his own beloved psalm. Back in the 1530s, after becoming isolated in Castle Kohlberg, the emperor had outlawed Luther. He was what was called under the ban.
He could be jailed. He could have been executed. It was a very troubling time for Luther but in this season of seclusion he would write a number of books and won a commentary on this one psalm.
118, a psalm that he called his own beloved psalm. Luther said this of the psalm, he said it was his friend. He said this is my psalm, the one that I love.
Although the whole Psalter and indeed the whole sacred volume is dear to me as that which is my only consolation in my life, yet I am particularly pleased with this psalm so that it must be called and must be mine. For it has often served me well and has helped me out of many troubles. As a result it is dearer to me than all the wealth, the honor, the power, the pope, the Turk, the emperor.
I would be most unwilling to trade this psalm for all of it. It was his own beloved psalm, his friend. As we also note this psalm bears no title to it and some may not agree but I believe it must be called David's psalm.
He is the king and he is leading his people in worship through a very most God-centered psalm. There is some evidence in Ezra 3, 10-11 that they are quoting from this psalm and attributing it to David. Why? What makes this psalm's song so special to so many? In this psalm we hear a call from King David to give thanks for the goodness of God through seasons of trial and trouble and sorrow.
God's goodness is clearly seen in his covenantal steadfast love to his people. It reminds us that God is good and that he hears, he delivers his people. Finally in this three-fold goodness of God, verse 14, he says God's goodness is our strength and our song and our salvation.
So we have so much in which to give thanks to God for his glorious goodness. Where does one begin? Before we do, this psalm has one more claim on it. It's a messianic psalm and some might call it a new covenant psalm or a song that only finds its true and ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
G. Campbell Morgan of a hundred or so years ago said though this was likely David's psalm, it was also Jesus' psalm. This is preeminently the triumph song of Christ, he the ideal servant, he the perfect priest, he the leader of the people. How much all these words meant to him as he sang them on that night in the upper room.
We'll look more into that later, but we do find shadows of God's deliverance from Egypt, a near fulfillment in David, but it becomes crystal clear that Jesus Christ is central and sees himself as its completion, its ultimate fulfillment. It is our Savior's psalm as well. So our psalm begins with an emphatic call, a command, O give thanks to the Lord, why? He is good.
Amen. Have you told him so? Have you in the words of Psalm 34 verse 8, O taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Let me ask it this way, have you found refuge in his goodness? Has it come from your heart, made its way to your lips? God, you are so good to me.
We sang of God's amazing grace already this morning, didn't we? Grace upon grace upon grace, you O God are my refuge, my hope. We're not talking about some little goodness like a dark lint chocolate, the blue and black ones are the best by the way. That kind of goodness, rather on the scope of goodness of a man dying of thirst in a desert, coming upon a spring of fresh water that brings blessed refreshment and even life itself.
That kind of goodness. It is like Psalm 31 verse 19, O how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you. It's a theme that we hear often in the Psalms, God's goodness invites us, he calls us to take refuge in him, to give thanks to him.
If I can just also make a quick observation, your thanksgivings, your true worship will equal the level that you recognize God's goodness in your life. You don't need a pry bar to open your mouth when you taste his goodness. I think we like to muck around in the darkness of this world and in some kind of malaise of self pity.
We wonder why at times our hearts are nothing more than an echo chamber of silence, but it speaks of the condition of our heart. How does your thanksgivings to God for his abundance, how is that going? Are you filled and overflowing? Is it coming from here to here? It is my hope that you will find God's goodness, nothing short of awesome, even overwhelming. Whether you're here with a boatload of trouble and trial, family struggles, financial hardships, I pray that nothing short of thanksgivings will flow from your heart today.
There's simply no other response possible to a heart filled with the goodness of God. We live in a very unthankful land, don't we? A land where a sense of deserving reigns, where many see themselves more as victims, I think, than victors. We know that in a culture, the sin of pride is exalted, that thanksgivings just vanish.
They just disappear. And that can become a culture in a church as well. Maybe you find yourself more complaining than thanking, more critical than praising.
David would have you grow in knowing the goodness of God to you in so many, so many ways. Again, we could be here all day. We could be here and on into eternity, just rehearsing the goodness of God.
But for time, and we're going to do a flyover, so I trust that you'll buckle up and take this psalm home and meditate it with your family and spend a long time on it so it becomes your psalm as well. So in broad strokes, let me suggest three ways that we behold his goodness. And he begins with thanksgiving for God's goodness in his steadfast love that endures forever.
And that's something to be thankful for. I think it is foremost in this psalm. Thanksgivings are to be given for God's goodness in, and translations struggle to translate, the NASV says for his loving kindness, the King James for his mercy, ESV his steadfast love that endures forever.
We could say this is David's big point, his big idea. And for he frames everything else in the goodness of God in what I'm going to call his steadfast love. We find it at the beginning, verse 1. We find it at the very end.
He begins, verse 1, O give thanks to the Lord for his good, for his loving kindness, his steadfast love endures forever. Verse 29, the end, O give thanks to the Lord for his good, for his loving kindness, his steadfast love endures forever. Simply put, God's enduring steadfast love is a mercy to be received with thanksgiving.
As I read through the psalms, David is always kind of leaning into the steadfast love of God, always calling us to consider, to find hope in it. Here he calls us to give thanks for the goodness even seen in his loving kindness, his steadfast love. And that is never ending.
His love endures forever. No one else can claim such love. There is no country song.
There is no secular song that can own the depth of God's enduring love for you and me. This loving kindness or steadfast love is one word and some pronounce it hesed and some pronounce it hesed in Hebrew. It is this word God used to describe, defines his own very name.
When he comes to Moses, he proclaims the Lord, or Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love in thousands. That's who he is. If this isn't an easy word to describe or translate, I think at least word for word in English, we have no word to fully kind of grab hold of it.
This one word hesed is what some linguists call an inexpressible word, a word that has no one word in English that captures it. One book titled Inexpressible by singer-writer Michael Card is all about this one word, hesed. Some translators attempted to translate it by making up a new word, and so in your Bibles you see loving and kindness jammed together.
That's right here is where that word became a word when they translated this one word. They took two words, jammed them together, and then we had a new word called loving kindness. Some translate it merciful.
ESV, and I like this better, steadfast love. Others call it loyal love of God, or the covenantal love of God. It is an unfailing kind of love, a kindness, a goodness, or in a phrase, it is his steadfast love, covenantal love that is eternal.
Thank you, oh my God, for such love. One writer said the hesed of God is this kind of amazing, divine, never-ending, never-failing, and if I can add covenantal love, it is a love of God that is always there, even when we cannot feel it or see it, but we believe in it because we believe in God. Hesed can make all the difference.
It is the one strand or hope that you can hold on to when all else has been stripped away. We try to capture it in hymns. One hymn that came to my mind is How Deep the Father's Love for Us.
I cannot give an answer. One of my favorites of all, one verse says, Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made? Were every stalk and earth a quill, every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry. Could we with scroll contain the whole? Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
So how important is this to our worship leader, King David? Well, he begins this way. He begins with this kind of general call, and if I'm going to use the ESV here, he says, Oh, give thanks to the Lord for his good, for his steadfast love endures forever. And then to the nation of Israel, David, the worship leader says in verse 2, Let Israel say his steadfast love endures forever.
And then to the priest, the priest needed reminding of God's steadfast love as well. Let the house of Aaron say his steadfast love endures forever. And David includes all who fear God.
That includes those who are strangers in Israel, now called God-fears, all believers fit here. Those who love God, who are first loved by God, now faith-followers, really all who belong to God, who believe God. Let all those who fear the Lord say his steadfast love endures forever.
So will all faith-believers here say with me, his steadfast love endures forever. Say it one more time, his steadfast love endures forever. Do you believe that? Are you thankful for his goodness to you? This is a theme that we often hear in David's psalms, songs and psalms.
Psalm 31 verse 1 begins this way, How long, O Lord, you can hear him pleading? How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? David is down and desperate. By verse 5 of that psalm, he ends saying, But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
His steadfast love to you is a balm for the hurting, the weary. Hope for those who feel no one cares. We find Psalm 6 verse 3 through 5, My soul is greatly dismayed but you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, rescue my soul.
Save me because of your loving kindness, your steadfast love. See, David runs and knows and believes and trusts and rests in God's steadfast love for him. I think that's what sets David apart as a man after God's own heart.
17 verse 7 and 8 says, Wondrously, show your steadfast love, O Savior, of those who seek you. There are so many and we could go on and on and we don't have time. Psalm 57, David says, My heart is steadfast, O Lord, my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody. Awake, my glory. Awake, O harp and lyre.
I will awake in the dawn. I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praise to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great to the heavens and faithfulness to the clouds. Even at Solomon's dedication of the temple, Solomon makes this appeal to God. Remember your steadfast love for David, your servant.
And then all the people of worship in response to King Solomon, it says when all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the temple, they, that is the people, bowed down their faces to the ground and the pavement and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Do you see a pattern in the Old Testament? An anchor to kind of hang on to? Let me just say this, something else here, that his steadfast love for David extends to David's son, the promised eternal king to come, Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 55, verse 3, I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
And he goes on in Psalm 89, verses 18, well, verse 24 says, My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. In verse 28, my steadfast love I will keep with him forever. My steadfast love will stand firm for him.
I will establish his offspring forever, his throne as the days of heaven. It's in Acts 13, speaking of the goodness of God. It says that God has fulfilled the promise to your children in that he raised up Jesus.
Also, as it is also written in the second Psalm, You are my son, today I have begotten you. In verse 34, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. That blessing is nothing short, at least is steadfast love.
I think when John 3, 16 is written, I think they have this love in view, because Jesus Christ is God's steadfast love for you and for me. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
We could say that he gives us his steadfast love that endures in Jesus. What an amazing gift. See, if all you know of David is his slaying of 10,000 to Saul's thousand, or David's slaying of a Goliath, to know his heart is to know David's leaning into God's steadfast love.
In Romans 8, 35-40, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, and on it goes, and it ends this way. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. On and on.
We've got to hasten as David will reveal God's goodness, not only in his steadfast love and thanksgivings, but now for God's deliverance from his many troubles, especially his enemies. This too is the goodness of God. God's goodness is seen powerfully in this psalm in particular.
His deliverance is strong here. So by faith, David believes God hears him and is for him. So in his distress, David, by faith, knows that God and only God is David's redeemer and redemption or remedy and refuge.
Look at verse 5. From my distress, I called upon the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me in a large place, for the Lord is for me. I will not fear.
What can man do to me? What can man do to me? The Lord is for me. Verse 7. The Lord is for me among those who help me. Therefore, I will look with satisfaction or triumph on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. All nations surround me.
In the name of the Lord, I surely cut them off. It's a circumcision kind of word. They surround me.
Yes, they surround me. In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. They surround me like bees.
They were extinguished as like a fire of thorns. In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off. You pushed me violently so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me.
The theme is clear. Troubles exist. God is and God must be the refuge in times of trouble.
I mean, you thought you had it bad, right? All these need pondering, but one thing stands out. There is no hero David here. You're not singing about his slaying of 10,000.
No Purple Heart. No Medal of Honor for David. No Distinguished Service Cross aboard for David.
The point being made is that it is God who is good. It is God who hears. It is God who is for David.
It is God who is steadfast. Love endures forever. God alone is the hero and center of the psalm.
This is David's point. It is God who must set us free from our enemies, even the enemy of ourselves. God must be our help, our refuge, our deliverer.
Yes, like many in this room this morning, you feel distressed. You feel the world closing in, caving in on you. I mean, how do you spell messy or crazy or bizarre? Just open your eyes to what is happening in this world and even our own families.
Someone recently said in this pulpit right here that we are a sanctified mess. We're holy and yet messy. So truly, enemies abound.
Lies and deception have become the norm. Enemies abounded for David. That includes King Saul, his sons, his wife, his counselors.
And how about himself? At every side. So what did David do? David had a friend and his only real true friend I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me, set me free.
The Lord is on my side. He has set me free. If you are in Christ today, you have a freedom this world knows nothing about.
You're invited, you're even welcomed, encouraged to enter the very throne room of grace to find help in the time of need. Isn't that awesome? We should be hauling buckets and baskets of thanksgivings for all God has done and is doing through his Son in our lives. David calls us to take refuge in God, not man.
Critical message for our day, isn't it? Don't look to man. Don't look to your spouse. Don't look to your child, to a parent, to deliver you.
To be what only God can be for you. We tend to do that. The best of us are crumbling refuges, right? We're imperfect lovers.
We're so poor at delivering others when we need deliverance ourselves. My niece and nephew endured a tornado in Illinois already this spring. It took down some very old trees on their roof and their neighbor was killed.
When the rain and storms come, we have no power to still the storm. Only God can do that. It is God who must be our fear.
Verse 6 again. The Lord is for me, on my side. I will not fear what man can do to me.
The Lord is for me among those who help me. Therefore I will look with triumph on those who hate me. David assumed he admonishes us to fear God with a fear that causes us to run like a child to your good and perfect and loving Father who is a refuge for us.
It's a filial kind of fear. Verse 9 is even a word for us today. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
Wow. Don't fear man. Don't fear princes.
Don't take refuge in a political party or whoever is in the White House. Take refuge in your God. Yes, fear God.
Take refuge in Him. Then David adds this. Verse 10-13.
All nations surround me in the name of the Lord. I cut them off. They surround me on every side in the name of the Lord.
They surround me like bees. I hate bees. They went out like a fire among thorns.
But in the name of the Lord, I cut them off. I was pushed hard so that... David says, I was falling. But the Lord helped me.
How do we say David had it bad? I don't know if we can actually write like David. This is how David saw his life. There is this army of enemy combatants including a son, his spiritual advisor, his wife, former friends, former king, plus invading armies, enemies like bees surrounding him, sting, biting.
And David responds in the name of the Lord. I cut them off. They have no power over my soul.
Some seasons in life are full of troubles like bees. David responds in faith, trusting the goodness of God to both hear him and to deliver him. And finally, giving thanks for God's goodness is profoundly in view in three ways.
This is kind of one point, but it has three under it. See, this is kind of one point or three, whatever. In my view, the three points are directly pointing us to Christ.
He has become our strength, our song, and our salvation. These verses just shine the light on Christ. I actually believe this psalm points to Christ.
It is ultimately His psalm. Whether it is Christ as our steadfast love, His power to deliver from enemies, what follows points us, in my view, ultimately only to Christ. His goodness is, we find God to be our strength.
David has been speaking of troubles, his distress, his fear, his almost falling enemies like bees attacking him. Who is David's strength? And here is another kind of unique wonder to this psalm. This psalm doesn't just seem to be about God.
It is absolutely God-centered. Maybe the most God-centered psalm in all the Bible. Let me ask this question.
What is the most often repeated phrase so far? Steadfast love of the Lord or loving kindness? That's five times. The Lord is on my side, twice. They surrounded me, four times.
Here, the most often repeated word is, in your Bibles, capital L-O-R-D. Lord, Yahweh. In this psalm, it actually occurs 30 times.
30 times. More than Psalm 119. More than any other psalm.
Actually close to 40 when you include pronouns. This is such a God-centered psalm. It is His strength we need, His power that we need, His fear that we need, His love that we need, His hope.
He is so good. What is missing here is this. There is no amazing Mike.
There is no amazing King David. There is no amazing Pastor Nate. God's strength is what we need today.
His Holy Spirit to strengthen and to guide us and to keep us from falling. Your pastor can't be your refuge. Your spouse can't be your refuge.
You need a strength that sees Christ, that sees God to be our refuge. Our strength must be in a sovereign God, which leads us to God, our song. How does one sing when bees are biting and stinging? Have you ever thought about that? I was walking home from school one day, and the farmers in Illinois had burned the ditches.
They did that once in a while to get rid of the weeds from the winter, and they disturbed a bee's nest. And all I knew was zing, zing, zing. They were biting me all over the place.
The farmer's houses were far apart, so I had to run about a quarter of a mile to the first farmer's house. I know what it's like. Do you know what it's like if you've stepped on one of those bees' nests? Is that when you sing, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound? What we don't need is another me song, do we? We need those old and new God songs, God-centered, Christ-centered, cross-centered, gospel-centered songs.
The song that this one's heart and eyes to the wonder and awe of how great is our God is our song. Christ is our song. We see His goodness, His enduring love, His deliverance, His strength.
He is our song. That is why there's no running out of material to write a new song of Christ's glory. Pastor Nate has been writing a few, and they're really good.
The Lord is my strength and my song. There's no dirges here. There's no woe is me.
He is my song. Yes, the Psalms have laments that most often end up with our eyes focused on God, who is good, who is our hope, who is our song. Verse 15 and 16, look at it.
The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tense of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted.
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. Is there joyful shouting coming from your heart of God's goodness to you? Do you sing it? Do you see it? I wonder what song is in your tent, in your home. When you know the goodness of God, the love of God, the strength of God to deliver, songs will flow from our heart about our good and glorious and delivering God.
How many songs come to your mind? My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross. I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh, my soul. How great thou art.
A newer song came to mind as I was writing this. Come behold the wondrous mystery. Christ the Lord upon the tree.
He, instead of ruined sinners, hangs the lamb in victory. See the price of our redemption. See the Father's plan unfold, bringing many sons to glory.
Grace unmeasured, love untold. Oh, how good is our God. We need to sing those great songs that exalt God's power, that extol His goodness.
The songs that joyfully proclaim His glory and salvation. These God-centered songs. And finally, and I wish we had really time to walk through this, and maybe this should come back for a longer look.
But again, I challenge you to take this home and meditate on it with your family. God is good in that He has become my salvation. I've already said this is clearly a Messianic psalm.
There are frankly so many shadows that find fulfillment in Christ in this psalm, all revealing that Christ is our salvation. So in every way, this is Christ's psalm. Verse 14, the Lord is my strength, my song.
He has become my salvation. As a shadow, this is what they call a Hallel song. It looks back to God's deliverance from bondage in Egypt, to God's powerful hand to deliver.
It points us to the past and has a near-present fulfillment in David, but as we will see, this psalm ultimately looks forward to the once-for-all Passover Lamb who delivers us and saves us from our sin. It's kind of like a painting that began in God's redemption of Israel from Egypt, but was completed in Christ. One said it rightly looks back to that great event of redemption in Egypt, but it also looks forward to the greater redemption provided by Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection.
According to one commentary, this psalm is quoted or alluded to 23 times in the New Testament. What is fascinating to me is, and Nate mentioned this a while ago, it was the custom during the Passover meal to sing the Hallel psalms, psalms 113 to 116 before the meal and psalms 117 and 118 at the end of the Passover meal. So psalm 118, this psalm would have been the very last hymn Jesus and his disciples would have sung at the Passover supper.
At the end of the Passover meal, Jesus would then return to the Mount of Olives and he would be betrayed by Judas. Matthew 26, verse 30 speaks of this psalm, and when they had sung him, they went out to the Mount of Olives. That would be this hymn.
Imagine if you are there with the disciples at that final Passover meal. Jesus raises the loaf, he breaks off a piece of bread and he says, this is my body which is broken for you. He lifts up the cup and he says, this is the blood of the new covenant that is shed for you.
And then together at the very end, these words are sung together. Verse 17, look at it. I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has disciplined me severely. He has not given me over to death. Do you see shadows of the cross, the resurrection? Open to me the gates of righteousness, verse 19, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. Jesus goes first, for he alone is righteous.
He is the Lord, our righteousness. We enter through that door that is Christ because he has entered first. We must come through him.
We must have his righteousness. Verse 21 says, I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. Who is your salvation? Who is your savior? Praise God for Jesus Christ, his son.
Literally, spiritually, eternally, he is our salvation. Verse 22, and this profoundly just points a spotlight to Jesus Christ. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This image, this promise of a stone is found many places. Isaiah 8, 14, for instance, and he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense, a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Israel. Zechariah 3, 9. It is Jesus who would later say in Mark 12, verse 10, have you not read the scripture that the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? That's the psalm, right? This is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Jesus is that stone that Israel and so many stumbled over, so many have rejected, tripped over. I don't doubt some here, young or old, have stumbled over Christ. Can he truly save me from my sin? Is it truly by faith alone in Christ alone that one is saved? How many churches stumble over that today? They don't even get that.
Acts 4, verse 11, Peter is preaching. He quotes from this psalm that Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you as he talks to the scribes and Pharisees, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. In Ephesus, Jesus is the cornerstone of the whole structure of the church being joined together, grows to a holy temple in the Lord.
So Jesus is the cornerstone. Yes, sadly for so many he is the rock of offense, the rock rejected by his own, the stone upon which many stumbled. Paul laments on that in Romans 9. What shall we say? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it.
That is a righteousness that is by faith. But the Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as it were by works.
They stumbled over the stumbling stone. And as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. I like James Boyce's words here.
He says you must not stumble at God's grace in Jesus Christ, as many have, tripping over the stone. You should come to Jesus instead and build your life on that secure foundation, that sure foundation, that sure cornerstone is none other than Jesus. Believe Jesus in his death and his resurrection.
So Jesus owns this psalm as its own. He is the final fulfillment. He is the cornerstone, rock of offense to some, but the cornerstone to so many more.
In glorious conclusion, verse 23, This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad. What is he talking about? I think he's talking about the day of Christ's death and resurrection to come. In Psalm 118, verse 25, O Lord, do save.
We beseech you, O Lord. We beseech you, do so, send prosperity. And he says this, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. As Jesus enters Jerusalem on that donkey, Matthew 21, verse 4, verse 9, I should say. What are they shouting? The psalm.
Hosanna, save now to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. As he enters Jerusalem as their king.
So the people are singing this psalm as he enters Jerusalem. Jesus sings it before the Passover meal, or at the end of the Passover meal, before he's arrested and taken to the cross. And crucified.
What can we say but just don't stumble over the cornerstone. Do you believe the gospel? Do you believe the good news that Jesus died for your sin, was buried, rose again in payment for your sin? All who believe the gospel will have eternal life. God is so good.
God is that good. God commends his love toward us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for you.
How good is our God. Verse 27, I hasten that we come to the psalm's end. The Lord is God.
He has made his light to shine upon us. I wonder who that is. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar.
Who is the light that shines upon us? But Jesus, they said, I am the light of the world. The world always moved towards the light, right? Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. There's many places we could go here.
John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God, who is Jesus. He is our sacrifice for sin. I'm sure much was lost on the disciples that day, but just from this psalm we see he is the stone rejected by men.
He is our song, our hosanna. We cry, Save now. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Jesus is our strength, our song, our salvation. He is the light of the world. Our righteousness, our sacrifice for sin.
He is the cornerstone for some, the rock of offense to many. He is our Father's steadfast love to us. A love that endures forever.
And so our Savior's psalm ends this way. Verse 29, O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. For his steadfast love, his loving kindness, his mercy, his loyal covenant to love endures forever.
So Jesus owns and fulfills this psalm. It's truly his psalm, song and psalm. It should be your psalm as well.
May his goodness be your praise and your song of steadfast love that endures forever. One last song and I'll, just a couple verses. A newer song.
Jesus is the cornerstone, came for sinners to atone. Though rejected by his own, he became the cornerstone. Jesus is the cornerstone.
Rock of ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Rock of ages, so secure, for all time it shall endure.
Till his children reach their home, he remains their cornerstone. Let's bow in prayer. Father, you are so good.
Will you receive our manifold thanksgivings? You are more than a lifetime, even an eternity of good. So very good. You have loved us and redeemed us through the gift of your Son, our Savior.
We could fill this day, this week, and will one day fill eternity itself with the praises of your goodness to us. You in love sent your Son to die and rise again to become the sacrifice for our sin, to be our Savior and King. You through the power of your Spirit turn hearts to King Jesus this morning.
May they see beyond themselves the blazing light of your amazing glory, the blazing glory of your cross. Don't let one stumble. Grant faith to believe.
Humble hearts, I pray. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.