Advent

Ok, I have been preaching through the Psalms for Christmas and the big theme of weeks 1-3 in Psalm 80, 85 and 126 was "wait on God and he will come through. Wait on his goodness because he is faithful, wait for him to fulfill the promise. (Like he did at the Incarnation and will again at the second coming or as I preach all the time the second Christmas)  


Wait with hope, Wait with peace, wait with joy.  


Then we looked at Love in Psalm 89.  


And I didn't plan this, since I just used the lectionary readings for this year, but as I looked at it and read Psalm 89 It starts off like this


I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever; 
   with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known 
   through all generations. 
² I will declare that your love stands firm forever, 
   that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself. 


And that hit me.  I've been telling our church to wait, to long for God and expect him to work and stick with him even when you are ready to give up...but the reality is that God is the faithful one.  He's the one who sticks with us, even after we give up.  His love is faithful forever, from generation to generation it stands firm.  This Psalm recognizes God's love in the past (v 1-37) but then asks God, "Where are you now?" from 38-51.  Kind of like us.  We see God's work, we know it in ways big and small. But there are times when we feel dissappointment and face defeat and we are ready to give up.  And sadly, sometimes we do.  


But in it all God is faithful.  


Faithfulness is the mark of God's love.  It's the mark of true love, right? Love never fails. That's why marriage and covenant are such essential elements of Biblical teaching and Theology.  These things teach us the nature of true love. 
  God's love, his promises are forever, and because of His character we should hope, not stress, and live with joy.  He asks us to be more like Him as he says wait, as he has us learn faithfulness, as he teaches us how to love.  And when we fail, he is there always ready to take us back, always ready to truly love.