Meditating on God's Loving-kindness

This sermon was preached on the first Sunday of the Year of the Rabbit (January 22, 2023) and is based on Psalm 107. The preacher begins with a story about a military chaplain called to a hospital in the middle of the night to pray for a dying cancer patient. However, when doctors recheck the X-ray, they discover it was only a misunderstanding, and the patient tells the chaplain he no longer needs his prayers because humans can solve this problem. This story illustrates a fact of life: people only turn to God when they cannot solve problems themselves, but they forget that sooner or later, everyone will face ultimate situations that humans cannot possibly solve—old age, weakness, and death.

The preacher explains two important words in Psalm 107 to help listeners understand the nature of God's love. The word "loving-kindness" (hesed in Hebrew) is used 6 times in this psalm and appears 248 times throughout the Old Testament to mean compassion and love not based on emotion but on God's covenant with the people of Israel. The word "redeemed" (gā'al) is used over 100 times in the Old Testament to refer to those saved from death, from slavery in Egypt, and from exile in Babylon. The valuable lesson is that even when facing trials and difficulties, when facing situations that seem hopeless, God never abandons His people. Rather, it is in the most seemingly desperate circumstances that God will display His power to rescue His people.

The sermon presents four groups of people saved by God through four different desperate situations. The first group consists of completely lost people who cannot find their way to the city, those without direction, purpose or meaning in life, with souls worn out and despairing. They seek genuine close relationships but only find superficial, fake ones; they seek a home with family warmth but cannot find the way. The second group consists of those imprisoned in darkness because they despised, disdained, and resisted God's warnings and teachings, resulting in family breakdown, crime, and violence in society. The third group consists of people sick and near death because of their own transgression and wickedness, experiencing not only physical pain but also spiritual pain from sin.

The fourth group consists of people facing dangerous storms in the deep sea, symbolizing the unexpected events, accidents, losses in daily life: economic collapse, accidents, terminal cancer, broken marriages, children born with disabilities. No one can predict these events in advance. The common action of all four groups is that they cry out to God when they recognize their desperate situations, and God listens and rescues them. An important lesson is that modern people have difficulty crying out to God because of pride and self-reliance, believing that they themselves are masters of their own lives and can solve all problems.

The preacher concludes the sermon by reminding listeners of God's unlimited power demonstrated through the images in Psalm 107:33-43: God can turn rivers into desert, springs of water into thirsty ground because of the wickedness of the people, but He can also turn desert into pools of water, dry land into springs of water, causing the hungry to be satisfied and the homeless to have cities to dwell in. The wise will pay attention to these things and meditate on God's loving-kindness and compassion, while the fool will say in his heart that there is no God. The sermon concludes with an invitation from Jesus: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened", encouraging listeners to hear this call and come to God to find rest.