1 Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme
and speak some boundless thing,
the mighty works or mightier name,
of our eternal king.
2 Tell of his wondrous faithfulness,
and sound his power abroad;
sing the sweet promise of his grace
and our fulfilling God.
3 His very word of grace is strong
as that which built the skies;
the voice that rolls the stars along
speaks all the promises.
4 O might I hear your heavenly tongue
but whisper, ‘You are mine’;
those gentle words should raise my song
to notes almost divine.
Faithfulness of God
Psalm 36:5 says;
5 Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. (Psa 36:5 ESV)
Have you ever been in a place where nothing seems to stay the same? Everything around seems to be shifting and the only thing that remains constant is your own discomfort.
Many times we feel like The Duke of Cambridge in the late 1800s, who said;
“Any change, at any time, for any reason, is to be deplored.”
Grady Nut told a story about a man (who) once bought a new radio. (He) brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry), and then pulled all the knobs off! He had already tuned in all he ever wanted or expected to hear.
Change is hard to deal with. But change will happen and, in fact, must happen as we go through life.
We don’t really have a choice in this day and age.
Some of the things I remember from childhood was the telephone in the kitchen. It was connect by a wire to the telephone’s base. Soon, we got a cordless phone. Now, we only own a landline so that the kids can call us if they need us. The only people who call us there are telemarketers.
Our lives change. The kids get older. The world around us moves on. To some degree we must change with it.
1. The one thing that doesn’t change is God and his faithfulness.
Psalm 36:5 says that God’s love is steadfast.
I like how the Christian Standard Bible translates this verse:
5 LORD, your faithful love reaches to heaven, your faithfulness to the clouds. (Psa 36:5 CSB)
Our Lord has a faithful love. It is steadfast, it doesn’t change. It isn’t tossed around with the waves of change. It is faithful—always faithful.
God’s faithfulness reaches to the clouds. It is never ending.
In Deuteronomy 7, God declares to the people of Israel:
6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. (Deu 7:6-10 ESV)
Pay attention to verse 7; God is not faithful because of your good works or because you have a large group of supporters—God is faithful because he is God. It is his grace that he gives us, and his faithful love. For no other reason than that he is God. And God is faithfull.
I’ve heard that the only thing that doesn’t change is the fact that things change. But the other thing that doesn’t change is God’s faithfulness. He is faithful.
2. Verse two of this hymn reminds us to:
“Tell of his wondrous faithfulness,
and sound his power abroad;
sing the sweet promise of his grace
and our fulfilling God.”
We need to do more than simply acknowledge that he doesn’t change. We need to praise him for it.
We constantly cry out and complain when things change—because they do. But, do we change that which does not change?
Tell of his wondrous faithfulness!
It is important that we become bearers of good news to those that are around us. Another term for “Good News” is the Gospel”. We need to share this good news of God’s faithfulness to the world that is around us.
When your friends are enduring the hardship of change—remind them of God’s unchanging love. His love is so unchanging that “while we were yet sinners, he died for us!” Like the Israelittes is the earlier passage, we do not receive grace because of anything we have done. We receive grace because God is unchanging. He is faithful.
Due to our sin, he sent his only son the pay the penalty in our place.
And 1 John 1:9 says:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1Jo 1:9 ESV)
He is faithful and he is just.
He have that story to tell to those around us.
As you face the changes all around you, I encourage you to remember the faithfulness of God. It is unchanging. May you continue to worship him throughout this week!
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Hymn from: The Faithfulness of God | Hymnary.org
Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash