Thanking God for Who He Is - Psalm 136 (part 2)

"Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;

for His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Give thanks to the God of gods,

for His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords,

for His lovingkindness is everlasting."

(Psalm 136:1-3)

We have MUCH to be thankful for. God's loving-kindness towards us is everlasting. His mercies are new every morning. His faithfulness is great. Bottom line - HE is great and therefore greatly to be praised!


In these first three verses of Psalm 136 the writer of this poetically repetitive hallelujah psalm points us to the character of God as one of the catalysts for thankful praise.

We are to give thanks to God not only for what He does but at an even more basic level for who He intrinsically is.

Friends, if God did NOTHING for us He would still be worthy of EVERYTHING from us. He is God! We are not. There is a great distinction between the Creator and the creature and we have been created by Him and for Him. Let us therefore give Him praise!

He is God - and He is a glorious God as the writer of psalm 136 will show us.

First, "give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

Let us give thanks to the LORD. It is to Jehovah that our gracious praises must flow. It is to the one living and true God - the great I AM that the thankful adorations of our heart must be directed to.

Let us give thanks to the LORD for He is good. As I have mentioned again and again in this series of psalms, our thanksgiving and praise should not resound simply because He does good but at a much more foundational level because He IS good! 

His very character - its holy excellencies and incomparable goodness - is the thing which should most drive us to our knees in grateful contemplation and erupting praise!

His goodness knows no end. 

It is eternal and inexhaustible.

Does that fact not cause your heart to well up within you?

Beloved, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

Second, "Give thanks to the God of gods, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

Let us give thanks to the God of gods. Jehovah is not some man-made deity. He is no idol of man's contrivance. He is no falsely formed Friend. No, He is the One from whom all powers are derived. Man could not even invent an idol were it not for the fact that the living and true God gave him the breath and ability to cut and carve and create. It is in Him that we "live and move and have our being."

Paul understood this in Acts 17 as he preached Christ to the philosophical pagans at Mars Hill. He stood in the Areopagus and spoke to them of their many "gods" - even their altar to the unknown god - and pointed them poignantly to the God of gods.

"Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things; and He has made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His offspring.'"

He continued:

"Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

Paul was directing the gaze of these great thinkers away from the gods of this world and the gods of their imaginations to the God of gods. What God/god are we living for? There is but One worthy of our life. Oh friends, "Give thanks to the God of gods, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."


Third, "Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."


Let us give thanks to the Lord of lords. Just as there is one God so there is truly only one Lord. This Jehovah alone is the true sovereign of all sovereigns and the one great and mighty potentate who reigns and rules supremely. It is He who is the King of kings. Rulers rise and fall at His bidding. Nations wax and wane at His command. His sovereignty rules over all. Therefore, let us not waste our times with little lords but live our days for the Lord of lords.

"Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

This is the God whom we worship.

He is the good God,

     the God of gods,

          the Lord of lords.

Is He not utterly worthy of all of our thanksgiving and praise?

His loving-kindness is everlasting because He is everlasting.

Thankful for the character of the God who is,

Lori