Verse one of Psalm 92, it says, it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night upon an instrument of ten strings and upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound. For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work. I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this. When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever. But thou, Lord, art most high forevermore. For lo, thine enemies, O Lord, for lo thine enemies shall perish All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered, but my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and my ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. All right, Psalm 92, look at verse one with me. It says, before verse one, a psalm or song for the Sabbath day. So this psalm is intended to be sung, and it's intended to be sung in the gathering of God's saints on the day appointed by God for the worship, the gathering together, the collective worship of the people of God in worship of God our Savior. So that we see that when we read through this psalm, we need to keep that in mind because you'll see in this psalm that thanksgiving and praise is given to God in order to show forth his loving kindness on these instruments that are mentioned. And in verse four, it mentions his work and the joy and gladness that the consideration of his work brings and how great God's works and his thoughts are towards his people. And in contrast to that, the lack of understanding by this one called a brutish man in verse six and the wicked that spring up as grass and flourish and yet they are destroyed. So the first thing I want to say in summary here is this psalm is a song to be sung on the Sabbath about how good it is, it's telling us in the psalm, how good it is to give thanks and to praise the Lord from the heart made glad through the works of our God and our Savior. And so in verse one where it says, it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O most high. Now the fact of the matter is, is that when I first read this psalm or any psalm or any scripture, my first read on it usually leaves me flatlined. You know what I mean? It's like there's no response. I have to read it again. And I have to read it again, and then again, and again. And sometimes, by God's graciousness, he gives us an understanding, and that our hearts begin to realize something about this. And as we think about that, then we can actually join with the words of the psalmist here and say, yes, indeed, it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, and it's a good thing to sing praise to His name. He is the Most High. And as we begin to think about those things, we have to admit that when we first read this psalm, especially the first verse, that in my own case, that I feel little of what the psalmist expresses in delight. I think that's because the one who's writing this psalm has been given the revelation of the truth. And he's been given that revelation by illumination. And that illumination has led to meditation. And so these things are from God. The revelation is scripture. The illumination is by the Spirit of God, the light that shines in our hearts. And the meditation is the result of the operation of the Spirit of God in us, the work of faith, as we consider. And that's what looking to Christ is. It's meditating, it's considering Him, it's depending upon Him, it's agreeing with God about all that the Gospel reveals concerning Him. And so that's what is happening in this psalm.

The psalmist has been given the revelation. not just in black and white, but the illumination of the revelation in his heart so he understands, in contrast to what is said in verse six about the brutish man who does not understand. He knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this. So I don't want to be a fool. I don't want to be as a beast, a brutish man. That's what brutish means here. It just means like a beast. He has no spiritual understanding. I want to understand. I want to agree. I want to say amen. I want to say that is the truth in my heart and with my mouth. I want to join in, I want to fellowship, I want to have the same mind toward the things of God that His saints have, that the Spirit of God is revealed here through the psalmist. And so when I first read this, this is my first reaction, is that I fall far short. I don't measure up. I don't find in myself reaching to the level of the psalmist. I'm far below that, in fact. And so what do I do in that case? Well, I read it again, and I ask the Lord. I seek. I knock. I say, Lord, give me. this richness of the treasure that is in Christ Jesus. Proclaim to us the unsearchable riches of Christ. So that's what I want to point out here first.

The second thing I want to point out here is that the psalmist is talking about how good it is to praise the Lord. And that's for several reasons. First and foremost is the Lord is good. but we don't know his goodness until he makes himself and his goodness known to us through his work. And that's why almost immediately in the psalm he reaches quickly to verse four, Lord thou hast made me glad through thy work I will triumph in the works of thy hands. So you can see that in expressing how good it is to give thanks and to praise the Lord, he's distilling what follows in the psalm. He's given us the abstract, if you will, the summation of what follows, which is often the case in these psalms. The first verse strikes the the theme of the psalm itself, it gives us a summary of the entire psalm. But we need the Lord to explain it to us. And the way that he does that is through his work, through the works of his hands and through the thoughts, the thoughts of God, as it says in the end of verse six, I'm sorry, in verse five, how deep, how very deep are his thoughts. So you can see here that what God has revealed is given us to understand in our hearts. And what God gives us to understand in our hearts by illumination, He gives us to meditate on in faith. And that faith leads us to understand God in His works, in His thoughts, which He obviously has revealed in His Word. And the conclusion of that is we come to the same conclusion that the psalmist did. It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord.

Denise and I knew a song, we used to sing it frequently when we were younger, and it has this verse as the entire psalm. It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. The song, I think that was mostly the full extent of the lyrics of the song, so I didn't learn the rest of this psalm in that one particular song, but I do like those opening words because of that.

Now, the other thing, when we look at the verses that follow in this psalm, like in verse 6, for example, about the brutish man, We can draw this conclusion when we find ourselves falling far below the psalmist's delight in giving thanks and seeing how good it is to give thanks to the Lord. One thing we can see clearly is that unless the Lord gives us that understanding, the understanding of His goodness by His works and by His thoughts revealed to us, then we can't give thanksgiving. We can't express thanksgiving from the heart, can we? If we don't know it, we can't be thankful for it. If the Lord doesn't make known His goodness in all that He's done, we won't be able to praise Him, will we?

So I remember also when I was young, the services at church would go along those lines. Let's praise the Lord. And people would sing a little song or a little chorus or something like that. And they would try to get things going. try to make things happen in me, and it just didn't seem to do anything. So what we learn is that in order for us to praise the Lord, we have to have that understanding.

So look at verse two. He says, It's a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night. So here, the worship service on the Sabbath day is talking about God's loving kindness, talking about his faithfulness, and that's the information that is conveyed through the giving of thanks and praise through the song.

Look at the next verse. He says, we're going to do this. We're going to give thanks and praise and show forth his loving kindness in the morning and faithfulness every night upon an instrument of ten strings, upon the psaltery and upon the harp with a solemn sound. So you can see that these tie together. These verses aren't separate. They're not carrying distinct thoughts. They're carrying a single thought with many aspects to it. And those aspects are like the different faces of a diamond. They're showing out different light and expressing the truth in a way that makes it appear warm and comforting and delightful to us.

So we need this understanding. We can't get it on our own. God has to give it to us. Our thanksgiving and our praise depend on God's gift of grace to give us that understanding. And he does it. When he gives us that understanding, then we understand his loving kindness and his faithfulness. And then what follows is expressing in song our thanksgiving and praise because of his loving kindness. and because of his faithfulness on these instruments.

OK. All right, now, the other thing is to know is that we never have a time. There's never a time when we shouldn't. give thanks and praise. It's not just on the Sabbath, or as it's called in this psalm. Let me just take a little detour on that. The Sabbath mentioned here doesn't mean that we're to meet together on the seventh day of the week. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about the fulfillment of that seventh day, or that seventh Yeah. Seventh-day Sabbath. I was having a math... Anyway, let me go on.

So there was a... There's never a time when we shouldn't give thanks. Never a time when we shouldn't praise the Lord. Not just on the day when we meet together, but every day. Every morning. Every evening. And the evening and the morning are mentioned here and it brings to mind a couple of things. First of all, continuous at the beginning and at the end of the day. Secondly, in the Old Testament they offered a morning sacrifice and they offered an evening sacrifice. And so by the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice, it was always directing the children of Israel to the Lamb, to the Lamb of God. And that's necessary even in our worship. There's no way we can have worship unless it's in the Lamb, because of the Lamb, with respect to concerning the Lamb, pertaining to God through the Lamb. And so the morning and evening have to do with that also.

But then also, as I think about it a little bit, I think about the morning of God's will and the evening or the nighttime of God's will. And we see there that from before the foundation of the world, God's loving kindness and faithfulness were declared in his eternal covenant, even before we had a being. We weren't there, God made promise to Jesus Christ and to us in Him. It says this in Titus chapter 1, let me just turn there quickly so that I can read that to you. He says in Titus, let me get there. Titus chapter one, listen to these words. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect. Those words, the faith of God's elect, is talking about the truth of the gospel. That's the object of our faith. The faith, our faith, our subjective faith, is in the revealed truth, which is the common faith of God's elect. So, speaking of the gospel, or what God has revealed concerning Christ in the gospel, the faith, the object of our faith, he says, according to that, and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness. So that acknowledging of the truth, that's our subjective faith. He says in verse two, in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.

OK, where were you before the world began? You weren't there yet. You had no being. Not only were you not born, Adam wasn't created. There was no world yet. Only God. There were no angels. There was no world. There was no one but God. And yet God promised. Who did He promise it to? Well, He promised it to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one in whom all of God's promises are yes and amen. They're sure in Him. He promised it to our covenant head, the Lord Jesus, our surety. OK, but that I mentioned that because that's the that's the morning of God's love and kindness. That's the evening. The evening of it would be the consummation of it in fulfillment, which will be an eternal glory. So that's the I wanted to point that out.

Now, as I said, there's never a time when we shouldn't give thanks to the Lord because the Lord is good. It says in Psalm 136, verse one, Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good is for his mercy endureth forever. See, this is getting at that content. We need content, don't we? Denise and I were talking today and we were talking about how we need someone to break things down for us. That's what the Lord does. He says the Lord is good for his mercy endureth forever. That's something we can get a hold of, can't we? His mercy. We need mercy, don't we? We need God to look upon us in mercy and not give us what we deserve. We need Him to look upon us in grace and give us what we don't deserve, the blessings we can't earn and don't deserve, we can't obtain by our works. That's what God does out of His goodness, you see. So the Lord is good, therefore we should give thanks to him. It's a good thing to give thanks to him because he's good.

It says in Psalm 36 and verse 8, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. And there we learn that that knowing the Lord is good is an experiential knowledge. It's a knowledge that comes to us in our own, by God's illumination and God's persuasion of us. He gives us that understanding and the result of that is we trust him. When we know the Lord is good, we can trust him. You know this, even in animals. Dogs won't, they'll stay away from someone they don't trust. It takes them a while, doesn't it? Even little children, they won't go to you unless they feel comfortable with you. And so that's why adults who love children are constantly trying to woo those little babies, because they want to hold them.

The Lord is the same way. We are naturally, we don't, it's not like, We just don't know the Lord in a way of familiarity. It's that our sin has separated us between us and our God. So we need the Lord to do something about that in order for us to trust Him. And that's His goodness. His goodness shown to us in mercy causes us, it breaks down the barrier. We're able to be reconciled to God in our minds when we understand God has reconciled us through the blood of His Son. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Romans 5, verse 10.

Okay, and then in Psalm 54, in verse 6, it says, I will freely sacrifice unto Thee, I will praise Thy name, O Lord, for it is good. God's name is good, and His name is who He has revealed. It's what he's revealed about himself to us. It's who he is as he has revealed himself. That's his name. It's like our name. We have a name and our parents give us that name. It identifies us as our parents' children. And they have a name that they've chosen for us, that they wanted to give us. Usually it's a name that they find affection, an expression of their affection or their hopes that the Lord would be our God. I did that with our kids' names. When I gave our kids names, we were thinking about how we could choose a name that reflected the Lord's desire for them. We had a son and his middle name was Jedidiah, because in scripture it says that God, the prophet Nathan, named Solomon, King David's son, Jedidiah, because it says the Lord loved him. So I wanted the Lord to love my son, so I gave him, as a middle name, Jedidiah.

But the Lord doesn't, He gives us a name, but what He's talking about here is His name. That's the way we know Him. And so He says, I will praise thy name, O Lord, for it is good. We know His name, we know Him. We know the Lord, who He is. and it is good. And that knowledge causes us to say, it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to His name, O Most High. One of the things we know about God that causes us to express thankfulness to Him and praise Him is that He is the Most High, Most High in everything, creation, providence, most especially our salvation. And so he says, in every situation we know the Lord is good. He doesn't change. In Numbers 23, 19, he's not a man that he should repent. Neither the son of man that, not a man that he should lie or the son of man that he should repent. He doesn't change. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. He always acts according to His nature, and His nature is holy. He always does good. Everything God does is good. If it wasn't good, then it would be evil. because it seemed good in his eyes. That's why he did it. It became necessary because God considered it good. That's why he does it. And whatever he does honors his name. It honors who he is, the name he's given to us of himself to reveal himself.

The other thing we know about God's name is he always acts in Christ towards his people. And this is a very fundamental thing, and it helps us to understand this psalm, is that all those who are in Christ by eternal election believe in Christ in the time of their life. During the time of their life, they will believe on Christ because they were in Christ by God's eternal election. So we believe in Christ because we were in Christ and our faith in Christ is the evidence that we are in Christ and He is in us. In John 6, verse 56, it talks about this. It says, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. So Christ dwells in every believer and we're in Him. We're in Him, He is in us, and the evidence is our faith in His blood, faith in His sacrifice for our sins, faith in His righteousness which He accomplished by that sacrifice. All right, that's what it means to understand God's name and to praise Him because of that. We should always be thanking Him.

And the context is the morning and the evening sacrifice, His loving kindness, His faithfulness to us, to deliver us. And so what this contemplation, this God-given illumination that leads to the contemplation and the trust in God out of His goodness because of His works, which He reveals to us, it causes us to have these springing up responses, as in Psalm 104, verse one, where it says, O Lord my God, thou art very great. That's pure praise, isn't it? That's thanksgiving. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for who you are, because all your works are good. You are very great. People use that word great too easily, and we should reserve it for God, shouldn't we?

And the other thing we see in this psalm is, as I said at the outset, it's a song to be sung on the Sabbath day. Now there's a significance to that, and here's the significance. It shows God's loving kindness in the morning and his faithfulness every night through the works of the Lord that make us glad. Okay, let me read those verses in the psalm to you. It says, after he says, it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to thy name, O Most High, he says, to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night, the beginning of the day, the end of the day, And the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb, offered to God morning and evening, upon an instrument of ten strings, upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound, for thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy works. I will triumph in thy works. The works of thy hands, O Lord, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep." So our thoughts enable us to see that God's thoughts are very deep and his works are great. It shows us that the object of our faith is what God has done and what God thinks. The Sabbath was given in order that men would remember that God in six days finished his work in creation. That was the first thing. And you can, I'm just gonna flip there myself so I get this right when I tell you. This is in Exodus chapter 20 when God gives the commandment of the Sabbath day. He says, Let's see, in Exodus chapter 20, he says, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. He declared it to be holy, a day, a holy day for the Lord. So it's because God rested. He rested from all his work in creation. But in the New Testament, in Hebrews chapter four, he says that the Sabbath meant more than just God resting in creation. It meant God resting in all of his works. And so, since the one who performs all of the works of God is the Lord Jesus Christ, we see that the rest, or the Sabbath, as the word rest means in Hebrews chapter 4, is meant to be understood as the finished work of Christ. And so he says this in Hebrews chapter four, verse three, we which have believed do enter into rest, into the Sabbath, that rest of God. It's a rest that God himself rests in, not because he's tired, but because his work is done. There's no sense in continuing the work when it's done. Christ offered himself once, and by that one offering perfected us forever. Therefore, he didn't have to offer himself anymore. His work is done. And we which believe, we which have believed and now believe, do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. And verse 10, he that has entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from his. So we can see then that the Sabbath, the psalm here, is to sing of God's works in Christ, which teach us God's character, His name, His loving kindness and faithfulness, morning and evening. And these are put to a song that's joined with instruments. And that song is to teach us the finished work of Christ in our salvation. And as we understand this, and we lean and trust and rest in Christ's work, then we have not only entered into the same rest, but we've entered into what Christ obtained by his work, which is our eternal rest. And the children of Israel going into the land of Canaan was a picture of this. They wandered in the wilderness until they entered the land of promise, which was Canaan. Canaan was a land God promised, It was a land Joshua, who pictured Christ, conquered, and it was a land where God himself was the one who took care of it. Everything was provided. They didn't have to water it, God watered it. They didn't have to watch over it, God watched over it. All year long, God watched over that land. And so rest, I mean, the land of Canaan pictured our eternal rest, the land of salvation. Christ obtained it for us. He obtained it by His work and He entered into it as our forerunner. And that's what Hebrews is talking about. And so this song is a song of believing Christ, isn't it? And resting in His work. It's a song of thanksgiving for what God has done in Christ. A song of praise to God for His goodness, for what He's done in Christ for us. And that's why the psalmist says in verse four, for thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work. What makes a sinner glad? To be delivered from his sin before God. to be delivered from the corruptions that his sin has brought into his own nature, his own heart and mind, to be delivered from all of his sin as a mighty and a tyrannical enemy, an enemy he has no power against, to be delivered from that, that gives gladness, and that's what we see in the work of the Lord. When we talk about God's work, we can break it up into the three categories of creation and providence and salvation. But each one of these were performed by Christ. He says in Ephesians 3, verse 9, that God created all things by Jesus Christ. And he also says that it was according to his eternal will in verse 11 of Ephesians 3. So what we see that creation itself was by the will of God, And Christ performed it. And we also know in Colossians 1, verse 16 and 17, that Christ himself created all things by him. All things were made for him. And he is the head of all things. And all things consist or are upheld by his word. So that means providence. So Christ not only created all things, but he upholds all things by the power of his word. And for the purpose, he works all things together for our good. That's providence. And then our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ also did everything in that. And when he did, he sat down on the right hand of God and rested. And so this is appropriately called the song to be sung on the Sabbath day. The Lord has done this great work. Creation, providence. Creation was that God would create a people in His Son and have those people as His adopted children by His Son. Providence is to bring all things working together by the mighty power of God to deliver them from their sin and to cause them to walk by faith in the work of Christ and in the person of Christ. And then, of course, salvation also leads us to eternal life and eternal glory in the presence of God with that unbroken, full disclosure communion, that intimate fellowship with God himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. And these are things that are taught to us in Scripture, God's work, creation, providence and salvation. All of them are done by the Lord Jesus Christ when he had by himself purged our sins. Don't you love those words from Hebrews 1 3? So going back just to review those points here in this psalm, the first thing we realize in this psalm is that we fall far below the measure of the delight of the psalmist and the understanding of the psalmist here in this psalm. And then we also see that the psalmist expresses what he does by divine revelation and illumination and by the meditation that faith brings to our hearts concerning Christ and his work. And then the other thing I mentioned is that the Lord must give us this understanding and there's never a time when we should not be thankful and give praise because the Lord is good and because his work in Christ is our salvation. It also is good, everything, Creation, providence, and all of Christ's work works together for our good. Everything in all those places, and we should never doubt the Lord's goodness, even though it seems harsh to us. It's not harsh, it's good, okay? And then I wanna read verse two of the psalm. It says, to show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night. Lovingkindness, let's talk about that for just a minute here. The loving kindness of the Lord. This is such a delightful subject for a sinner, isn't it? Someone who doesn't deserve the loving kindness of God yet has been shown this loving kindness. This is a wonderful thing. I'm looking for this section in this document and I'm not finding it here. Oh, here it is. I found it. I put it in the wrong place. All right, there was one verse in particular I wanted to read here in Psalm 36, Psalm 36 and verse seven. It says this, how excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. Therefore, the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. You see, it's because of God's love to us. We did not love God until he made known and performed the work of his love towards us, that work of Christ, and making it known through the gospel. And so we don't put our trust under the shadow of His wings until He makes known His lovingkindness to us. This psalm says it's good to give thanks to the Lord. It's good to sing praise to His name, O Most High, to show forth Thy lovingkindness in the morning and Thy faithfulness every night. So the song is meant to make known the lovingkindness and the faithfulness of the Lord. God's loving kindness, this is the first thing I want you to see here. God's loving kindness is how God saves his people. Remember Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 3. Let me read that to you. You can see this in this verse. Jeremiah 31, 3. We refer to this very often and so you may have remembered it. He says in Jeremiah 31.3, the Lord hath appeared of old to me saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. That's talking about God's people in Christ. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Remember, I said earlier, all that God does, he does towards his people, all that he does, all of his thoughts, all of his works towards his people are done in Christ. Very important. Here, He has appeared of old to me saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, a love that had no beginning, a love that has no end, a love that never changes, it can't increase in intensity, it cannot decrease. God's love is unchangeable and it has no beginning and has no end because it's in Christ. But notice, therefore, I, with loving kindness, have I drawn thee. See that word, loving kindness? Don't you find that delightful? Because the Lord loved us in Christ from everlasting and shall love us to everlasting. When we were sinners, God commendeth his love toward us in that Christ died for us. And here he says, because of that, therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn thee. So the loving kindness of God draws us, draws us to what? To Christ, doesn't it? That's where God's loving kindness is seen. This is how God saves. In Psalm 51, you may even be thinking of this as we're talking about this loving kindness. Remember what David said in Psalm 51 after his sin with Bathsheba against Uriah? He says this in verse one, he says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. That's salvation, isn't it? It's the way God saves. It's what He has towards His people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me read this to you from the Gospel of John, in John 17. He says this, he says, the Lord Jesus in prayer to his Father says, I in them, thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. You see what I mean? Everything God has towards his people, his thoughts, his works, his will, his promises, his gifts, are all given to them in Christ and as Christ. He gives everything to them that he gives to his son as the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 24 of John 17, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my glory that thou, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. It says in verse 23, as thou hast loved me. The same way, the same. Everything God has and gives to his son, he gives to his people because of his son, and he gives to them in his son. They're one with Christ. flesh and blood, body, spirit, in every way, they're one with Christ. Read Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 6. We're one with Christ. We were in him by eternal election, in him as our surety, as our representative head, as Adam. Not only he's the second and last Adam, we were in him in covenant. And now we're in him by his spirit, we're in him in faith. And these things are delightful to think about. This is his loving kindness to us. It was in love that God drew us, according to that loving kindness. It was in love that he forgave our sins for Christ's sake, as in Psalm 51, verse one. It will be in love that God the Father presents us to Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, holy and without blame, according to Ephesians 1, chapter 4. It is in His love that He preserves us in Christ, and nothing can separate us from that love. Romans chapter eight, verse 29 through 39. It is in love that He knew us, He foreknew us, and predestinated us, and called us, and justified, and glorified us, and shall conform us to the image of His Son. It's in love. He foreknew, foreloved us. And it was in love that He delivered up and did not spare His Son for us. If God loved us that way, It was in love that Christ gave himself for us. It was a love greater than which there is none greater. None higher, nothing higher than the love of the Father and the love of Christ who took us to himself and made us holy and spotless without blame before him in love. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He loved the church. No one had to persuade him. This arose from his own heart. She didn't have to parade before him to attract his love. He loved her when she was sinful. And so 1 John chapter 3 verse 1 says, behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. That's the loving kindness. God's love is saving. God's love is giving. God's love is faithful. God's love is keeping. Remember what Jesus said to Peter? Satan has desired to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for your faith. That was spoken in love. That was keeping love, preserving love. God's love is eternal. God's love for His people is the love He has for His Son. God's love for His people is in Christ. It's distinguishing love. God's love is in Christ, therefore it is distinguishing love, the distinguishing love of God. It's a love that doesn't end. How could God love those that He says in Judgment, I never knew you? He couldn't have ever loved them. So God doesn't love everybody, does he? Not according to what Jesus said in Matthew 7, I never knew you. Yet he told his disciples that in John 13, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them to the end. He loved them with an everlasting love. So there's a discrepancy then. If God loved everyone, what about those he said, I never knew you? And what about the fact that in Zephaniah chapter 3, 17, he says, the Lord will rest in his love. He will save. He'll rest in his love. And so the salvation and the love go together. The love of God is a saving love, and it's a distinguishing love for his people. It says in that hymn we like to sing, if the sky itself were of parchment made, and every blade of grass and stalk on earth was a quill, if every man were ascribed by trade, and with ink the ocean itself was filled, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky. God will spend, according to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 7, God will spend eternity unfolding to us His loving kindness to us in Christ in the ages to come. That's the loving kindness. You can see why the psalmist said it is a good thing. It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord. His loving kindness will be seen then in the ages to come to have stretched from eternity past to everlasting ages It will be seen as reaching to the deepest hell and seen raising to the highest place at the right hand of God in Christ. We'll see that God's love overcame our greatest enemy, which is our sin. In every way, every accusation against us will be silenced. He'll take away the basis of every accusation and condemnation, sin itself, having made Christ to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. All that we have done, all that we are in the corruption of our nature, Christ himself has taken and put away and will bring us to glory spotless, without fault, blameless in the presence of his glory. And he'll do it by his blood and by his word. God himself will make us clean. God himself does make us clean. And he himself will not find any spot of sin in his people. And you can read about that in Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 20, the Lord will search and he won't find any iniquity in his people. He himself will find his people to be what he delights in most, his own righteousness. That's the loving kindness of God. God will look upon his people with the utmost delight in Christ and he will find them to be the very righteousness of God in him. That's the love of God that did that. When we were yet sinners, Christ loved us. It will be the obedience of Christ that God finds the greatest delight in, and his blood shed in obedience. The love of Christ, the humility of Christ, the selfless giving of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, offering himself to God in justice, in satisfaction, in righteousness, According to the very wisdom of God, He will justify us in Himself. That's the love of God that did that. It will be God's love and God's faithfulness, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to his Father and all that God would have done to honor himself in the salvation and in the adoption of a sinful people, to fulfill his eternal will, to have them as his beloved children. What measure of love is this, O my soul? To write the love of God above a drained ocean, dry, and the scroll of the skies couldn't contain the whole Eternity will be too short to unfold the love of God to us, will it? So that's what he says here in verse two. We sing about this. And then there's the faithfulness in the morning. In the morning, God's loving kindness. In the evening, his faithfulness. Every night. God is faithful. You know He's faithful. He began every work in creation and in providence and salvation. And He will finish every work. You know what? Everything God does is already done in heaven. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So everything, all of God's work is done. And that's why we enter into rest in believing Christ. Not only is it finished in heaven, but on earth Christ has finished our redemption. He obtained our eternal redemption already. And as our forerunner has entered into our rest, he's taken possession of it. What God promised and gave to us is given to Christ already and to the saints in glory. Abraham believed God, remember? What did he believe? He believed that God was faithful. to do what he promised, and he was able to do what he promised. Sarah judged him faithful who had promised, and so she was delivered of a child. Hebrews 11, verse 11. Everything the Lord does, he does in faithfulness. In faithfulness to his name, in faithfulness to his son, in faithfulness to his people, in faithfulness to his word. God is faithful. He cannot not be faithful. He's God. God will not suffer his children to be tempted above what they're able. He is faithful. He is good. He is faithful to be faithful. That's how faithful God is. Faithful. Great is thy faithfulness, he says in Lamentations chapter three in verse 22. Great is thy faithfulness. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his faithfulness. It was in faithfulness that Christ did his Father's will. Christ was faithful to his people. He was faithful to his Father, to the pledge he made from eternity to be the surety, to make us sure to the Father. And he fulfilled his suretyship engagements. with his father, which he entered from eternity. It was in faithfulness that the Lord Jesus Christ brings his sheep, his people, to himself. Remember John 10, verse 16? Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. It was in faithfulness to his father. Remember David took care of Jesse, his father's sheep? So Christ took care of his father's sheep. And that's why David went out, he left the sheep with the keeper and he went out and fought Goliath. It was for the sheep, for the sheep of Israel at that time. And Christ so left glory in the presence of his Father to take care of his sheep when he slew our sin and death and hell and the devil and everything else through his death on the cross. He judged these things. He must bring his sheep, he's faithful. The Lord Jesus Christ cannot fail because he's faithful, because he's able. His word is sure. God's word cannot fail and Christ's word will not fail. Not one thing that he said will fail. That's faithfulness, isn't it? And so we notice here that the psalm, the psalmist expresses his thinking, what he thinks in his heart, what he says with his mouth, that God is only good, he's always good, and he shows forth his loving kindness and his faithfulness in the morning and every night.