God’s Goodness and Love (Ps 136:1)

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.” (Ps 136:1)

Thanksgiving and Worship
Being thankful is also very important in our worship because we glorify God the most when we give thanks to Him for who He is and what He has done.
Psalm 50:23 says, “Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me.” (Ps 50:23)
 
Gratitude is an important expression of worship.
 
When we pray, we almost always pray expressing our gratitude to God. So, giving thanks to God is very closely related to worship. While reading the Bible, we easily find many verses related to giving thanks to God.
 
Giving Thanks in Every situation
Paul says,
“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (1 Th 5:18).
“Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” (Col 3:17)
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Php 4:6-7)
 
Even though everyone lives with gratitude, Christians’ gratitude differs greatly from worldly gratitude in that Christians are called to give thanks to God in every situation, not just in certain situations.
 
We tend to thank God when we’re in good situations. We might give thanks to God when we get good grades at school, get accepted to a good college, or get a great job. Non-believers also are grateful for those things. In fact, it’s natural for people to feel grateful in good situations.
 
But, Christians’ gratitude is different from that kind of gratitude because it’s not really based on our situations. True Christians give thanks to God in every situation—not only when their situations are good, but also when they are undergoing difficulties. That makes Christians’ gratitude unique.
 
Paul was in a difficult situation when he wrote, “In every situation present Your requests to God with thanksgiving.” He was under house arrest in Rome for two years. He had spent all his life preaching the gospel of Jesus, and as a result, he was imprisoned.
 
But, rather than blaming God for his situation, Paul gave thanks to Him. Even when he was imprisoned after being severely beaten in Philippi, he prayed to God and sang hymns to Him.
 
So, the important question is, how was Paul able to be grateful in every situation? And, how can we give thanks to God in all circumstances? That’s what we need to learn in order to be true Christians because giving thanks is part of God’s will for all of us.
 
Paul didn’t just write “give thanks to God.” He wrote, “give thanks to God through Jesus Christ.” If we try to find things to be grateful for in our situations, we can’t always be grateful because our situations are constantly changing.
 
But, if our thanksgiving is based on Jesus, we can be thankful in every situation by relying on Him because He doesn’t change but always loves us and faithfully guides us with His goodness and grace. I think that was how Paul was able to be grateful even when he was in difficult situations.
 
God’s Goodness and Love
Psalm 100:4-5 does a great job in describing this. It says,
 
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Ps 100:4-5)
 
The psalmist didn’t find his reason for being thankful in his situation, but in God’s characteristics—His goodness, love, and faithfulness. He said that we give thanks to God because He is good, because His love is everlasting, and because His faithfulness never fails.
 
The act of giving thanks is a way of recognizing God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness. It’s a way to humble ourselves before God and proclaim who He is. It’s acknowledging that everything given to us is by God's grace and professing that everything we have achieved was only possible because of God.
 
If God had not given us brains, we would not be able to study. If God had not given us ability and health, we would not be able to work. Above all, if God had not sent us His son, Jesus, we would not be able to become righteous and worship Him as His children. In fact, everything we think we’ve achieved with our own strength and ability was actually thanks to God's grace.
 
As Paul professed,
“By the grace of God I am what I am… I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Co 15:10)
 
So, by giving thanks to God, we humble ourselves before Him, lift Him up, and glorify His name. That’s why the act of thanksgiving is a very important part of Christian life.
 
We read part of Psalm 100. The psalmist found the reason for giving thanks to be in who God is. He said, “Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.” (Ps 100:4-5)
 
In fact, this phrase is repeated throughout the Old Testament, and we find the exact same phrase in Psalm 106, 107, 118, and 136.
 
When the ark of the covenant was being carried to Jerusalem, King David joyfully praised the Lord, dancing and celebrating. And, when the ark was set inside the tabernacle, David appointed some of the Levites to thank and praise the Lord. And, they said, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” (1 Ch 16:34)
 
When the Judeans returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests sang to the Lord with praise and thanksgiving, singing,
“He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever” (Ezr 3:11). 
 
From this we know that their thanksgiving sprang from remembering God’s constant goodness and love. They were able to give thanks to God in every situation because their thanksgiving was not based on their circumstances, but on God’s unchanging characteristics.
 
Remembering Who God Is
So, in order for us to give God true thanks that glorifies Him, we are to continue to remember who He is and how He has faithfully guided our lives with His goodness and love. The more we’re reminded of what God has done in our lives, the more we can be grateful to Him.
 
In Psalm 136, the phrase “Give thanks to the Lord… His love endures forever” repeats in every verse—a total of 26 times. And, in each verse, the psalmist gives reasons for giving thanks to the Lord.
 
In the first 4 verses, the psalmist gives thanks to the Lord for who He is. He urges us to give thanks to the Lord because He is good, because His love endures forever, because He is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, and because He alone does great wonders.
 
In the next 5 verses, the psalmist gives thanks to the Lord for His creation. God made the heavens with His wisdom, spread out the earth upon the waters, made the great lights, and made the sun to govern the day.
 
In verses 10 to 22, the psalmist gives thanks to the Lord for His salvation. He remembers how God brought the Israelites out of Egypt and guided and protected them in the wilderness.
 
God struck down the firstborns of Egypt and brought Israel out of Egypt by dividing the Red Sea and letting Israel pass through it. God led His people through the wilderness, gave them victories against many kings, and gave Israel the lands of those kings as an inheritance.
 
What’s important about God’s salvation for Israel is that God saved them not because they deserved it but because God loved them. As Moses said,
 
“The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” (Dt 7:7-8)
 
Moses made it clear that the reason God had chosen Israel and saved them was because He loved them and because He was faithful to the covenant He had made with their ancestors. And, Israel’s proper response to God’s love and faithfulness was to give thanks to Him for what He had done.
 
So, in the last passage, the psalmist gives thanks to the Lord for remembering the covenant, for His guidance, and for His provision. He said,
 
“He remembered us in our low estate… He gives food to every creature… Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.” (Ps 136:23-26)
 
In summary, the psalmist gives thanks to the Lord for who He is, specifically His caring nature, and for what He’s done—meaning His creation and redemption. And, those reasons are enough for us to express our gratitude to God. When we deeply think about and remember who God is and how faithfully He has guided our lives with His goodness and everlasting love, we can’t help but give thanks to Him no matter the situation.
 
The Best Reason for Thanksgiving: Jesus Christ
Even though we experience God’s goodness and love in every aspect of our lives, they are most clearly shown in Jesus Christ.
 
Jesus was at the center of God’s creation because He was the Word through which everything was created, including us. Jesus was at the center of God’s salvation because through His death and resurrection, our salvation was made complete.
 
Through Jesus Christ, we know how much God loves us because as John said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (Jn 3:16) and as Paul said, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rm 5:8).
 
Not only that, but through His great, steadfast love, we know that God will faithfully hold us tightly in His hands and guide us until we see Him face to face. All these things were already completed and given to us through Jesus. So, we can always give thanks to God through Him.
 
Giving thanks to God is essential in Christian life. We might think that we don’t have much to be thankful for, but when we think deeply about who God is and remember the salvation and love He has given us through Christ Jesus, we can see that there’s so much to be grateful for.
 
The key to being thankful in every situation is to remember Jesus and remain in Him. When we humble ourselves and give thanks to God, He will be honored and glorified. That’s God’s will for us who belong to Christ Jesus. 

​