“I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

This is my memory verse for the week. And of course, memorization better aides meditation. I ask: Who would not want this for him or herself? Here we have the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Creator and Sustainer of all things promising a covenant that is permanent, everlasting. And in this covenant, God, yes, God Himself, promises to never turn away from doing good to the people within this covenant. Think of it: Never turning away from doing us good. Only good. All the time. Romans 8:28 is based upon the covenant faithfulness of God. For those who have entered into this covenant through faith in Christ, the Lord God will never turn away from doing them good. Never, ever, ever. Only good. All the time. Can you believe it? I hardly can. For if I did, I would be indestructible. What would come my way that could shatter me? Nothing at all. For there is nothing outside the control of my sovereign and good God, the One who purchased me with the blood of His Son and promises me only good all the time.

Not only that, but for those within this covenant, the Lord has so changed their disposition within that they may not turn away from Him. The eternal security and the perseverance of the saints are both grounded in this great promise. God has so changed those in this covenant that they will not turn away from Him. They are regenerate. Born again. Imparted new life by the power of the Holy Spirit. And who did this? God did this. Notice the “I wills…” in this verse (and all over the Bible). Our strength in the face of suffering and our security in the midst of struggling faith are grounded in God’s “I wills….” Not our resolve, but His resolve. His resolve to save His people for the glory of His name. God has made such a covenant by the blood of His Son. And God has not and will not turn away from doing good to those within this covenant. He has placed (and will place) the fear of Him inside every one of His elect, that they may not turn from Him.

When our resolve is weak, let us meditate then on the resolve of our great and perfect God. For no resolve of His will fade. What He promises to do, He will do. Indeed, it is as good as done. O may He grant us the grace to believe it! We are wise to linger over such truth until faith does indeed arise.

In our darkness day, we can pray, “O Lord, though my faith and my resolve are weak, you are not. You promise to sustain me, to never turn away in from doing me good. Though I might feel as I can turn away, I can find confidence in the fact that your sustaining grace will allow no such thing b/c of Jesus Christ. O Lord, I look not to myself, but to you, the God who keeps covenant, the faithful One who fulfills His every ‘I will.’ O Lord, grant me the grace to resolve in light of your resolve. Great me the grace to persevere in light of your perseverance. Grant me the grace to rest in the midst of struggle and trial, knowing that you will not turn away from me. O Lord, thank you that all this is true and ‘Yes’ in Christ Jesus. It is in His name that I pray. Amen and Amen.”

v. 17-34 Notice that everyone had their respective duties. Naturally, when everyone faithfully performed their small duties, things ran smoothly for the good of the people and the glory of God. But note that in order for everyone to do what they were supposed to, they had to know exactly what they were supposed to do. They had to know their role before they could faithfully fulfill their role.

And so it is in the local church or any other group situation in fact. Someone needs to clarify responsibilities. Then everyone must carry them out. Finally, there must be some sort of accountability to the group and to the one (or few) who oversee the group. Clarification of responsibilities and accountability. How greatly these two things are needed in every sphere of existence today, particularly within the church!

The psalmist is so full of joy in God that he calls upon all of Heaven and Earth to join him in praising his great God. Have we experienced such fullness? The fullness that leads one to cry out to even the angels and inanimate creatures to bless and praise the Lord. The fullness that calls upon sea creatures that no human can see to bless their Creator. The fullness that sounds the call to praise to every person of the earth and supports that call to praise by declaring the Lord’s utter and perfect uniqueness, His perfect holiness; for HIs name alone is exalted; His majesty is above earth and heaven.

And the Lord’s utter uniqueness should indeed by something we meditate upon and consequently exalt in every single day. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Indeed, every king and every lord is designed to point to Him. The universe? It is about God. The sea creatures whom no one can see? They are about God. All of human history? It’s all ultimately about God and His glory filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.

He has established the earth. He has made everything we see and don’t see for the sake of His praise. And He sustains all things for precisely the same reason. He is jealous to bring glory to His great, deserving name. Mountains and hills….yes, you must and will praise the Lord. Kings of the earth, you are commanded to do the same. Angels and all his host, explode into singing. For the Lord is deserving of praise.

Notice one more things: all that the Lord has created praises Him not simply in some sort of singing (though that is included for us), but in simply doing what they were created to do. That is, the sea creatures and the mountains and and the stormy wind….all these things praise the Lord by being sea creatures and mountains and the stormy wind. Sure, they don’t really have discern through what the Lord has called them to, but it is that simple in the end. We praise the Lord not only in song, because our whole life is meant to be a ‘song.’ We praise the Lord by doing what we were created to do.

Think about all that that entails, namely, all of life. All of life is meant to be worship unto the Lord. And it can be worship as we simply do that which we were created to do….and do it well….and improve upon it….and persist in it to His glory and honor and praise. Unlike every other thing created in Heaven and Earth, we have been created in the image of God. So if we want to bless the Lord, we need to know all that that entails and in turn, live accordingly. For if and when we do so, we will indeed, praise the Lord!

v. 1 “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.”

There is certainly a time for resolutions to be made. “I wills…” Commitments. Lines in the sand. Words of consecration. Deep decisions of the soul. Statements centered not on what we do or we are presently, but on what we want to do and who we want to become.

Resolutions such as these are powerful. But they are powerful only when they are consistently reviewed and renewed. It is wise for us to put such resolutions in writing and to review them consistently. For a practice such as this can have a powerful impact in conforming us to our vision. For as good as vision is, vision is worthless unless it contains contours and unless those contours are consistently set before our mind’s eye. Vague visions do not help us a great deal. Neither do visions we have not thought about for weeks.

So there are times for ‘I will.’ Indeed, there is probably a time(s) for it everyday, particularly if we are reviewing, and particularly, if such resolutions concerning God and our pursuit of Him.

It seems wise to determine what we will do before the situation arises. Determine what you will do in the morning before the morning comes. When you will wake up. What you will read. How long even you will pray (within reason). Have a plan for your day. Have a plan for your life. Then resolve, by God’s grace, to strive for it with utmost passion and power.

v. 3 “….and his greatness is unsearchable.” For all eternity we will search out the Lord’s greatness only to rejoice and continue our search. What finite creature can ever exhaust the glories of an infinite God? The notion is impossible. Heaven will never be boring, b/c God is there. And God cannot be boring. Never will we tire of celebrating and seeking Him. For His greatness is unsearchable.

v. 4 Commendation and declaration. These two things we must be diligent to do as we seek to raise up the next generation for the glory of God.

v. 5-7 Who God is and what He has done. These two things fill up the meditation and celebration of the saints.

v. 8 I need to be reminded of this everyday. This means simply that I need to think of Jesus and all that He has done every single day.

v. 1-21 Notice that David begins with a resolution of soul. But he then follows up this resolution to extol the Lord with multiple reasons for why he should do so. Surely he said all these things by way of reminder. I mean, he had to have known them. But the key is that our hearts will not be stirred by what we simply know. We need to communicate what we know, in prayer, in worship, in speaking with others. We need to overflow with reasons for why we ought to worship the Lord. Reasons why we ought to fulfill our resolution to extol His great name. And we must do this every day.

v. 14-20 How Josiah responded to the Word of God determined how God responded to Josiah. Ultimately, we realize that the Lord not only knows how a man will respond, but that that man’s response is a part of His pre-ordained plan. Yet the principle still holds true, b/c the Lord’s sovereign ordination does not negate our personal responsibility.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves with diligence, how am I responding to the Word of the Lord? Am I taking action upon it? Does it produce in me repentance? Or I am easily hardened? Am I quick to apply what I learn? Or do I easily cast it off as I continue to live as I always have lived?

Though such questions are simple, they are vital to get right. For as Jesus said, “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” Let us be diligent to be responsive and humble before the Word of the Lord.

v. 5 “Let a righteous man strike me–it is a kindness; let him rebuke me–it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.”

O if every Christian had the same perspective as David. He counted rebukes from the righteous as kindness and refreshment. And he prayed for the grace not to refuse it, but to embrace it as he ought. We live in such a sensitive age, an age where self-esteem is so emphasized that few, if any, can handle difficult rebukes. Oftentimes, to even suggest that someone may be in need of rebuke leads to immediately difficulty or even to broken friendships or churches.

But this is not how it ought to be. Indeed, when it comes to relating to fellow Christians, we ought to welcome rebuke and assume that it is right. O how much grace me need to change in this regard! This requires a changing of the entire atmosphere of our fellowship. A greater humility, a greater openness, a greater transparency, a greater willingness to be rebuked, indeed, in the end, a greater hunger to become all that we were created and redeemed to be.

Also, I have to wonder about the clear correlation between the difficulty in receiving difficult truth and rebukes and the failure of our churches to practice church discipline. Surely the latter has led to the former. May the Lord grant us the grace to be faithful to this practice once again.

v. 1 “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”

The message we have received is a message declared and confirmed by the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Therefore, if we drift away from such a message, the retribution we receive will surely be worse than the retribution received by those who disobeyed the message declared by angels. The Messenger is a means by which we can measure the greater and power and authority of the message.

Notice also that drifting is a natural inclination for every human being. If we do nothing, we drift. We fall away, little by little. If we fail to work out, we don’t stay the same, but fall quickly out of shape. And so it is spiritually as well. Day by day we must pay close attention to the message we have received, lest we drift away from it. Yes, in order to persevere in the Christian life, we must be diligent in our pursuit of faithfulness to the message and ultimately, the Messenger. Discipline is needed. Day by day discipline until the day we die.

Hezekiah’s theology was right on. Surely it was reflective of the foundation beliefs of the Jewish people concerning the Lord. In short, they knew full well that the Lord was a jealous God, a God whose zeal focused upon the manifestation of His own glory.

Notice that when Hezekiah brings the letter from Sennacherib before the Lord (v. 14), his prayer reflects a radical God-centeredness. He petitions the Lord not really on the basis of the people’s need, but on God’s zeal to faithfully make known His name. This is always our safest prayer.

Sadly, however, this radical God-centeredness is all but lost in many places today. The good news that God is jealous for His name is new news to many within the church. This should not be the case, for the Bible makes it plain that the God revealed there is the one and only true God who is jealous to make His ‘one and only’ place evident unto the world. O may the Lord grant us the grace to recover a radically God-centered perspective. May our prayers have greater power as they flow from a heart that petitions God on the basis of His zeal for His own glory.

Take note also of God’s words to Sennacherib. These are the words of a sovereign God, a God who is in complete control over all the universe.

v. 7 “Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.” Who will do it? God will do it.

Also, in the Lord’s words to Sennacherib in v. 22-28, clearly the Lord is confronted the King Sennacherib’s arrogance and making plain the fact that He, the Lord, holds complete control over all that he, King Sennacherib, has accomplished.

Then judgment comes in fulfillment of the Lord’s Word, judgment from on high. 185,000 wiped out by the Lord’s direction. And King Sennacherib killed by two of his sons in the house of his god. And of course, the fact that King Sennacherib was killed in the house of his god is no coincidence. The Lord was making plain His plain as King of kings and Lord of lords. In this judgment, the Lord exposed the folly of worshipping idols and His place as God over and above all gods (for they are not gods!). So the Lord will expose our various idols and make sure that we cannot succeed in our worship of them.

Reasons and Repetition. The repetition consists in the words, “for his steadfast love endures forever.” But the repetition is not empty, b/c reasons are given to recite such simple truth. Virtually the entirety of the psalm consists in the giving of a reason and the responding of a repetitive phrase.

Worship leaders ought to take notice. If you are going to repeat, be sure to do so with reasons. Recount the Lord’s mercies. Remember all that He has done. For then you guard the people from meaningless repetition (though surely the Israelites struggled with it). Reasons fuel the fire of the repetitive phrase.

v. 4-8 “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.”

Notice that Paul exhorts Titus to insist on all that he spoke of in verse 4-6, the goodness and loving kindness of God as revealed in our salvation, a salvation entirely performed by His Almighty hand, in accordance with his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that as we are justified, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus had to insist on these truths, and to do so persistently.

But notice why….“so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.” Now that is very interesting. Paul exhorted Titus to insist on these central doctrines of truth concerning our salvation, b/c these truths are the foundation for good works. Clearly there is a connection between believing these realities and living a life full of good works, impartial and sincere.

Therefore, if we want to raise up a people who are zealous for good works, we must insist on these doctrinal realities. For ‘these things are excellent and profitable for people.’

v. 9-11 Clearly, the fact that we are to avoid foolish controversies about the law insinuates that we must not avoid “wise controversies” concerning the truth described (and insisted upon) in the verses above. Though we must take pains to be humble and respectful and gentle, and indeed, to avoid quarreling, showing perfect courtesy to all people (v. 2), we must also contend for the truth. And we must be diligent to discern what is worth contending for, that is, what truly serves as a foundation for all good works, and what only serves to produce needless controversy.