As Steve said, Pastor Butler's away and will be back on Thursday, returning to his exposition, I believe, in the Book of Matthew and in the Ten Commandments. Until that time, I trust that you'll bear with his substitute in the pulpit, and I trust God will give strength that it will be easy for you to do so. You can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 107. Psalm 107, as we Explore some of the riches of Psalm 107, verses one to nine, both morning and evening.
Psalm 107, we have good words of our God concerning his merciful deliverances to men. We want to rehearse Thanksgiving and rehearse the reasons for Thanksgiving here this morning and then this evening. Get into some of the specifics with regards to God's deliverances and why men ought to praise and thank their God. So this is Psalm 107, beginning in verse one and finishing in verse nine.
The word of the living and true God. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered out of the lands from the east and from the west. from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way.
They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city for a dwelling place.
Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. Amen. Well, let us pray.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this psalm that we just read, disclosing the fact that men ought to be thankful, that men ought to give praise to their God for His goodness and for His mercy delivered. And we do pray, God, that You would help us as we explore Your Word Give us grace to rejoice, to give us that presence of wisdom to understand, to take in these things, to glory in the truths that Your Word discloses to us, that we might leave this place rejoicing and seeking to live in light of Your truth. And we just pray that You would bless preacher, that You would bless hearer, that again this exercise of worship, the preaching of the Word, Lord, would be done to the praise of Your grace and to the praise of Your Most High Name.
It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.
Introduction
Well, you'll remember that there are many types of psalms when we come to our Bibles, when we come specifically to the book of Psalms, we find various types, we find psalms of lamentation. Remember where the psalmist is giving formal expressions of grief over sin, over oppression, over those who oppose and sometimes even over the absence of God or the perceived absence of divine favor. Psalms of doxology. Remember what that is.
That's psalms of praise. The psalmist simply giving praise to God for his multitudinous mercies and kindnesses. We have messianic psalms, don't we? Those psalms that set forth Christ in the Old Testament typically, directly and prophetically.
We have psalms of thanksgiving like we do here in Psalm 107, where the psalmist is calling upon the congregation to give thanks to God. And in so doing, he rehearses various mercies and various redeeming activities of God in order to elicit that thanksgiving. And so we want to rehearse some of the texts that we find here in Psalm 107, examine them under two headings this morning, the call to thanksgiving and the general character of God that informs man's thanksgiving and praise.
The Call to Thanksgiving
So first off, notice the call to thanksgiving. It's very simply, oh, give thanks to the Lord. Remember, and you've heard this from me multiple times, and I apologize, but you probably will hear this until God brings me home, that these calls come to men, oh, give thanks to the Lord, because in spite of the obvious reality that we should be such that are to give thanks to God, It comes to men who it comes to us because we can be so often marked by thanklessness. And so these calls come to men.
It comes to redeemed men so that our souls might be aroused to the thing brought before us. In this case, the call to thanksgiving. And hopefully you'll come with me and realize that as the redeemed people of God, we are to be marked by this particular disposition. Under the call to thanksgiving, though, oh, give thanks to the Lord.
We want to notice,
All Men Owe Thanks to God
first off, generally all men are to give thanks and praise to God. This hopefully is an obvious thing because of who God is and what he has done. Our confession says at this point, generally all men are to give thanks. and praise to God. Our confession in the doctrine of God reads this way.
He is most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands. To him is due from angels and men whatsoever worship, service, or obedience as creatures they owe unto the Creator, and whatever he is further pleased to require of them. You know, the commandment here, the entreaty to give thanks to God, Doesn't it illustrate that the commands in Christianity are blessed commands? What are we commanded to do but to give thanks to God?
What a kindness that God issues this command through his psalmist and the command is give thanks to the Lord. It's an interesting thing here in the Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew. Two words are brought together. One word is the word to confess or to profess.
And the other word you'd be familiar with, it's Alleluia. So when we read here, blessed or when we read here, oh, give thanks to the Lord, the Greek translators chose the word Alleluia, praise ye the Lord. And so this command is given and the command is give thanks to the Lord or praise ye the Lord with your mouths, confess Yahweh and his goodness and his mercy. All men, though, are to give thanks to God.
Calvin writes this. There is no one who is not indebted to him for numberless benefits. You see, later on in actually the very next verse, we read, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. But you see, it is all men that are to give thanks to God.
As Calvin says, there is no one who is not indebted to him for numberless benefits. The redeemed, yes, that makes sense, of course, doesn't it? That we are to give thanks to our great God for the numberless benefits that he has bestowed upon us. But you see, he has bestowed numberless benefits upon all men, regenerate and unregenerate alike.
Turn with me to Psalm 117. Psalm 117. A very short psalm, isn't it? Two verses, but notice.
Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud him, all you peoples, for his merciful kindness is great toward us and the truth of the Lord endures forever. You see, it is the case, of course, again, that the redeemed are to give thanks to the Lord. But the psalmist, because of the greatness of his God, because of the goodness of his God, because of the multitudinous mercies of his God, calls out to Gentiles and says, praise the Lord all you Gentiles, laud him all you peoples.
Our God is great and he is greatly to be praised. Bibles at the ready, turn as well to Psalm 148. We want to tour through much Bible this morning and this evening. To see these connections, to see these truths, to see these things from Psalm 107.
Notice in Psalm 148 and at verse 11 on this note, kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges of the earth, both young men and maidens, old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is exalted. His glory is above the earth and heaven. And he has exalted the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, of the children of Israel, the people near to him.
You see what the psalmist does here, again, in the spirit of Psalm 107 and Psalm 117, kings of the earth and all people, princes and all judges of the earth, both young men and maidens, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord. Generally, all men are to give thanks. and praise to our God, because what do we read in the Bible? But this motto, not this motto, but these words that truly sum up this reality, he gives to all life, breath, and all things. Men, unregenerate and regenerate alike, wake up in the morning and they have life.
Their hearts are beating. Their bodies are working. They have strength in their bones, even in weariness and even in laziness and even in tiredness and even in sickness. It is the case that most of us brethren can rise up from our beds and we have strength in our bodies.
We have strength in our limbs. We have breath in our lungs. It's a startling thing that the God who condescends in his goodness to give things to men that they are to be thankful for, like breath in their lungs, nevertheless use that breath to blaspheme the very God who gives it to them. God gives life, breath and all things to men.
Generally, all men are to give thanks and praise to our God.
A Definitive and Abiding Disposition
Secondly, under the call to thanksgiving. This is, though, to be a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God. Kids, when we say, when I just said now, this is to be a definitive disposition of the people of God, that simply means that Christians, kids, are to be defined by thanksgiving. It is to mark us.
If you're a Christian, if you say you are a Christian, then you can't be one unless you are marked by thanksgiving. That is something that is definitive of a Christian. We are to be a thankful people. And when we say it's to be definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God, that means it is to be a continual thing in the people of God.
We're going to see this as we work on this point, a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God. First, we see this in that it is absent from the unbeliever. Turn with me to Romans 1. We see that this is to be a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God, because to the contrary or on the contrary.
The enemies of God are defined by the absence of thanksgiving, notice Romans one beginning in verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
You see what the absence or the opposite of thankfulness is? Well, we know that it's thanklessness, but thankfulness is set in opposition here to the foolishness of thoughts, futility of thoughts, foolishness of hearts, and darkened understanding. Christians are marked, are to be marked by a thankfulness because it is the very case that the unbeliever is marked by a thanklessness. They have been made known by virtue of creation and providence and their own conscious, their own consciences that testify to the reality that there is a God in high heaven who will judge the living and the dead.
Nevertheless, they're thankless and they become futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts are darkened. It is a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God. Secondly, because it was at the best of times what characterized Old Testament Israel. You can turn with me in your Bibles to Exodus 15.
It is to be a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God. We see this demonstrated at least in his people redeemed from out of bondage in Egypt, though many of these were unregenerate, it nevertheless recognizes that the people of God, in this sense, His old covenant people, exercised a measure of thankfulness. And this would extend spiritually to His new covenant people, regenerate, who are to do likewise. Notice in Exodus 15.1, Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord and spoke, saying, I will sing to the Lord, For He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea." You see the thankfulness here.
Well, we don't see a thankful, we don't see a word rendered thankfulness or that they gave thanks to the Lord or I will sing thanks to the Lord. Nevertheless, hopefully you see that there. They were just redeemed from out of bondage in Egypt. They were just brought by their God from out of physical bondage in Egypt and God had judged. their enemies.
And so they sing this song that is later repeated in verse 21. But we see there that the people of God at the best of times were characterized by this disposition of thankfulness. Notice as we find our way back to the Psalms, thirdly, that it is the constant refrain of the psalmist throughout the Psalms. Hopefully when we read that Psalm 107, verse 1, hopefully you sort of were reminded of the fact that I've heard this a lot as I've read my Bible.
You've read through the Psalms. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. That's a constant refrain by the psalmists in our psalms. A couple of instances, notice in Psalm 95, and we want to bring out a particular point with this instance of the phrase in Psalm 95 in verse two.
Notice what we read. Well, beginning in verse one. Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. You see what's going on here is the importance, and this we'll bring up later, but the importance of coming together as the saints of Christ in church. You may have a title that isn't inspired, a help added, if you will, by those translating the Bible.
Mine says a call to worship and obedience. And that's right. You see, it's the psalmist call to the gathered assembly or perhaps even to the assembly not yet gathered, saying, oh, come, come to the gathering, come to the assembly and let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. You see, there is a peculiar and certain reality that God is present with His people when they gather together in the house of the Lord. The joy it is to come into this place, hopefully for you, brothers and sisters, and you give thanks because you have like-minded saints gathered together. There's something that ought to warm the heart.
When we stand up together, we open up a hymn book. and we sing of the glories of our God. If you're like me and I think I want to set a, you know, a figurative nuclear bomb that destroys all social media and the internet. I know it's helpful and we can find good stuff on there. But sometimes don't you find yourselves alone in your, you know, your whatever, your current events and that sort of a thing and you're just bombarded by the wickedness of our world.
You're bombarded by the madness. You're bombarded by rainbows and people singing the praises of a woman's choice to murderously and barbarically destroy their child. And they're singing the virtues of these things. And you feel sort of alone because you're usually by yourself.
You're on your computer. You're doing whatever you are with those devices, looking at these things of current events. And you're like, man, is everybody out there? against the truths that I hold dear. And then you can come into church.
You come into church and be with your people who are with you, your God, whose presence is here and who is with you. It's a wonderful thing. Be thankful for that. We come and we sing to the Lord.
We shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. We come before his presence and we do so with what we do so with Thanksgiving. because of the glories of our God, because of the blessings and the benefits that he pours out upon us abundantly through Christ Jesus the Lord. This is to be a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God, fourthly, because it was the disposition of the mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're what as Christians, we're constantly by the grace of God being conformed to what?
The image of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to follow after our savior, the Lord Jesus. And at the point of thanksgiving, we do well to follow after him, don't we? You can turn to the book of Matthew.
The Lord Jesus Christ, his disposition is marked by thanksgiving, Matthew 11. Matthew 11 and verse 25, you know this verse well. At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight.
You see, God is to be thanked for his sovereign good pleasure in all things, the particular point of view, his sovereign pleasure in hiding gospel truths from the wise and the prudent, but revealing them to babes, a doctrine so maligned, even by some who say they fly the banner of Christ, the unrivaled mastery and sovereignty of God over all things in this world, even unto the point of the redemption of guilty sinners. The truth that is so maligned, Christ praises God for. A truth that is so maligned by the opponents of predestination and the doctrines of grace is God is thanked for by the mediator, by the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ. But all of that to bring us back to this, let's follow after our master, the Lord Jesus, and have hearts of thankfulness.
You know, here's another thing that I might say too often, but hopefully it's a wholesome repetition. What ought we to do when we wake up in the morning? This isn't just to fill sermon time. When we wake up in the morning, we are to be marked by souls of thankfulness.
Yes, because we draw life. Yes, because we draw breath or have life and draw breath. Yes, because of the multitudinous benefits that God physically and temporally gives us. Brothers and sisters, as we'll get to later, because of the mercies of God through the saving and perfect work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Deacon Steve prayed in his prayer, we pillow our heads at night with thankful hearts. And we follow after our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, in doing so. Fifthly, this is to be a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God, because it is the disposition that is to mark our prayers, according to the Apostle Paul, isn't it? Remember what Paul says to the anxious, what Paul says to the worrying.
He says, be anxious in nothing, but with prayer and supplication mingled with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Our disposition in prayer. You see, we just don't we don't launch into prayer. We don't fly into prayer with fast feet, skipping past the disposition that is thankfulness.
We don't just bring our supplications and throw our requests at God, charging into the prayer room. But rather, we are to come with those controlled by the spirit, with a disposition of thankfulness. Paul's major point there. Be anxious in nothing but with prayer and supplication mingled with thanksgiving.
Make your requests known to God. In prayer our disposition is to be one of thanksgiving. Not a give me attitude. Not this attitude whereby we see prayer as some sort of formula where we ask and God gives.
But with hearts of thankfulness that have been made such by the shed blood of such a Savior and by the spiritual power of such a spirit, we come to God in prayer with thanksgiving, making our requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, is ours through Christ, the glorious Redeemer. Lastly, under this is to be a definitive and abiding disposition of the people of God, It is to be our signature disposition in all things. So to sum it all up, to wrap this all up, the Bible tells us that it is to be our signature disposition in all things, brethren.
Turn to Colossians with me. The book of Colossians, we read there in chapter three, that prayer is to be the Christian's signature disposition in all things. Notice what we read beginning in Colossians 3 at verse 15, and let the peace of God Rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. You see then that it is true that our disposition is to be, our signature disposition in all things, is a thankfulness. We'll hopefully close by looking at some things whereby we can culture this, but brethren, we're reminded time and again to give thanks to the Lord because we need to be reminded time and again to give thanks to the Lord. Might it always be our disposition?
Yes, we'll slip. Yes, we might go through a day in our busyness And whatever else, we'll have times of seasons where we seem like we're far from the presence and the favor of God. But might we always, by God, be brought back to the point where we rise and we fall, where we wake and we sleep with that disposition, thanking God through Jesus Christ for the benefits, for the blessings, for the glorious things that he gives us.
The Content of Thanksgiving and Praise
Thirdly, then, under the call to thanksgiving, we have what is the content of thanksgiving and praise? You see, maybe, I don't know if you've ever done this exercise, and I'm just throwing out a hypothetical. A husband and a wife, they've been married for a long time, and they're becoming weary, and they're becoming, they've just maybe gone their own separate, not separate ways in life, but one, the husband's working a lot, the mother, the wife, she's wrapped up with housework and kids and everything else. She's schooling them, she's feeding them, You know, maybe there are two ships passing in the night and they sit down and they want to rekindle, they want to get back on track with their relationship, one with each other, hopefully prayerfully, and they sit down and they write a list of those things, those things that they're thankful for, one to each other, husband and wife, and hopefully the list can get long and hopefully they can sit there for a while and write, but if you've ever done these exercises, sometimes it's like, okay, Okay, yeah, yeah, right.
And then you eventually get a list going. But hopefully, brethren, moving to much higher things, not that the relationship between a husband and wife should be taken lightly. It's a blessed gift given from God. But the point is, we're to give praise and thanks to our God, and right when we're called to write a list, the pen should hit the paper right upon the command, and we can keep going until eternity.
Throughout eternity. What do we have? What is the content of our thanksgiving and praise? Well,
Thanksgiving for All Things
firstly, brethren, generally and necessarily, thanksgiving and praise for all things. Well, that's an easy thing to say, preacher. But it's true, and let's rehearse some. The content of our thanksgiving and praise, generally and necessarily, thanksgiving and praise for all things.
First off, under that, we want to note,
Daily Blessings, All Undeserved
we are to thank God for daily blessings, and those all undeserved, brethren. We thank God for daily blessings and those all undeserved. At this point, Pink makes a good observation. Gratitude is the return justly required from the objects of his beneficence.
Let's stop for a moment. What Pink is saying is that thankfulness is rightly to be given God because of his benefits given. Gratitude is the return justly required from the objects of His beneficence. That means His bestowal of good things and benefits.
Yet, is it often withheld from our great benefactor simply because His goodness is so constant and so abundant? It is lightly esteemed because it is exercised toward us in the common course of events. You see, we, at least in the Western world, We have so many benefits, don't we? So many blessings.
Yes, we have life and breath, but we have an abundance of food, don't we? We have cars that most of them work and we can drive them. We have houses, we have clothing, and no shortage. Yes, there are those that struggle, but if we look at our lives, we can look and we can see that this is true. that there are so many, that there is an abundance of the goodness that is constant, and it is exercised toward us in the common course of events.
You see, we can go through a day, we can go through a week, and we enjoy so many things, but do we stop along the way and give thanks to our God? You see, ritual is a good thing. What do I mean by that? Obviously, salvific ritual, ritual in order to gain God's favor, is an abomination.
Empty and vain ritual of the pagan sort are nonsense and should never be followed after, of course. But at the point of thanksgiving, you know what a good ritual is? You know what a good custom is? Give thanks to God for your food.
Oh, but you know, it's just a ritual. You close your eyes and you bow your head and you thank God for your food. Yes, glorious ritual. Why?
Because at least there we're stopping and we're doing what is to be our disposition. We're doing what is to be our activity as Christians. We're giving pause to consider the benefit of the benefactor that he's given to us in his grace and in his condescending mercy. We don't deserve the food that we have.
Remember, Pastor Butler, maybe it was last Lord's Day said something like this, that the only The thing that we deserve is what? An eternity in a lake of fire. Because of our sinfulness, because of our iniquity, because of our depravity. So when we get to cut into a juicy steak, or if you're a vegetarian, when you get to cut into a good chunk of tofu, when you get to cut into your blessed meal, brethren, it's undeserved.
And that reality is to cry out, Thanks to God. That reality is to cause you and your soul to be stirred to a high thanks to God who gives us things in the face of the reality that it's undeserved. We do not deserve those things that he gives. So for daily blessings, all undeserved life, breath and all things as well,
Thankfulness in Affliction
not only for blessing, but for affliction. That's that's why some people can look upon Christians who embrace this reality, thankfulness and affliction and can say, man, they're weird. Because that just doesn't ruminate with them, that just doesn't fly with with the unbeliever. But brethren, turn with me to Psalm, turn with me to Psalm 119.
This is and I want to we want as you're turning there, Psalm 119 and specifically verse 71. Psalm 119 and verse 71. If you want, you can read it before I read it. That's fine.
But I want to pause here for a moment. You'll remember, most of you will remember, a fellow, a blessed brother that died a number of years back, Johnny Farese. He was afflicted with SMA. And he Near you know the last I don't know.
I'm just guessing at this point, but it's certainly the last 20 years of his life Completely unable to move it may be the smallest movement of course in his mouth but as far as his limbs as far as large bodily movement nothing a withered man on a bed and Yet he was he was able to in that create websites with his mouth to send out prayer requests and to to maintain a prayer distribution list and a Reformed Baptist directory and do all these things with just the movement of his mouth. You know what he would close off most of his emails with? It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may learn your statutes. Wow.
What does that speak to? but a disposition of definitive and abiding thankfulness. He had been afflicted with this disease, and yet he did not, as so many unbelievers would, raise his fist to God and say, why? Why have you given this to me? But rather, he would close off his emails with, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.
Oh, sure. He would send emails sometimes repenting and saying, Struggled this week with, you know, wondering why I've been afflicted for so long and that sort of thing. But then he would quickly collect himself and say, find himself back with a thankful heart at this text again. It is good for me.
Brethren, blessing and affliction. In fact, in our Psalm, Psalm 107, if we were to read the entirety of it, we would see That it is in blessing and affliction that we are to rehearse the praises of our God. We are to give thanks to God for both blessing and affliction. The merchant mariners, the psalmist says, know that truth for a certainty.
Notice Psalm 107, 23. Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths.
Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits end. Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm so that its waves are still.
You ask, well, where is giving thanks to God here for blessing and affliction? Well, notice, yes, it is God who calms the storm so that its waves are still. But brethren, verse 25, for He commands and raises the stormy wind. You see, God delivers the storm. in the good pleasure of his will, in the wisdom that he alone has for the good of his people, for his own glory, and yes, for the judgment of his enemies.
But you see, that same God calms the storm so that its waves are still. Blessing and affliction give thanks to God.
Thanksgiving for the Law of God
We are to give thanks to God for the law of God. Psalm 119.62. Psalm 119 and verse 62, we give thanks to God for his law. At midnight, I will rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous judgments.
And perhaps in view is most certainly his law, but perhaps even more to the point, the execution of his laws demands. Notice the language here is because of your righteous judgments. Well, when we get tonight to an examination of more of the general character of God, we'll note that it is a mercy of God when he judges the enemies of his people. Here we see, brethren, that we are to give thanks to God for his law and for the execution of it.
God's law is wise. It is right. It is glorious. It is to come to us as honey to our lips.
It is a blessed thing, his law and his word. And
Thanksgiving for the Gospel
lastly, we are, this is under, again, the content of our thanksgiving and praise. We are to be thankful for the gospel. You see, that ought not to be a stretch that comes to your ears and hopefully you say a wholesome, yes, that's right. Not a yeah, right.
But a wholesome, yes, that's right, preacher, because If all of these things, of all of the things, daily blessings, all undeserved blessings and afflictions considered temporally and physically, these things, remember, will fade away and will be gone. But the one abiding and eternal thing is what? Gospel verities that we've been saved by such a Christ, by such a God, through such a glorious work of redemption. And so we come to God with thankful hearts for all things.
We come to him first and foremost and with primacy at the point of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You look for this in the Psalms, and I believe we find it in many places, but Psalm 103. Verse 1 and following. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.
Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Now notice, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Calvin says at the point of this psalm, and particularly at who heals all your diseases, and he notes some take this to mean and to assume that God, when he forgives us of our sins, will also heal us from our sicknesses, our maladies, and our physical diseases.
And Calvin says, no, that is to restrict it. It's referring spiritually to God's deliverance from our spiritual death and sickness. who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. Does He give us physical food that satisfies? Does He give us good things that we can eat and be sustained physically?
Yes, but when we read who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles, we're to mount up from physical things and to arrive at the spiritual and to say He feeds us with the bread of life. That is Christ Jesus the Lord. Notice what we find back in Psalm 107 at this point. Closed our section in Psalm 107 verse 9, we read, for he satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness.
Brethren, when you come to the word of the living and true God, you have food for the soul. When we cry out in hunger and when we cry out with longing souls, God feeds us with Christ, the bread of life. John 6. If you ever wonder if God feeds you with anything spiritually, go to John 6.
Christ says, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he has life in him. Not blasphemously referring to some strange and magical transformation of the elements at the Lord's Supper, that's nonsense. But rather speaking to what he had already said prior to that, he who believes in me will never hunger. He who comes in me, comes to me, shall never thirst.
God feeds us with sustaining strength. God feeds us with His Christ, with revelations of His word, with the truths of the gospel. Remember that stuff that Isaiah brings out in Isaiah 55. Come, you who hunger, you who thirst, and buy without money.
You see, we spend and we pour so much money into physical things. Now, there are things that we need to spend money on. Money is, that's, You know, that's the stuff that we need to buy stuff, to put in our mouths, to drive, to live, to put raiment on our backs, and to have houses over our heads. But you see very often, we can go overboard, and we can waste money on some pretty trivial things, can't we?
Not sinful necessarily, but nevertheless, things of no lasting value. Things that can so often steal away our attention. You see, the things that we are to focus on as Christians with regards to the soul, certainly not those things. Those things should never warm our souls.
Giving thanks to God for physical benefits, sure, but the things of abiding value that we're to feed ourselves with, the Word of God, His Christ, and His Gospel. The flower fades and the grass withers. The Word of God lives and abides forever. Brethren, we have so much. to thank our precious God for.
We're going to move to the general character of God tonight. As time ticks on, we want to close with a few things here, a few closing thoughts. We'll push the general character of God that informs man's thanksgiving and praise to this evening. But
Application
let's close with some few closing thoughts here. First, we are to be a thankful people. That's obvious. But brethren, be a thankful people.
Be a Christian. who is only such when marked by a disposition of abiding thankfulness. Remember, the unbeliever is marked by thanklessness. We are not to mimic and we are not to follow after the way of the unbeliever. That's sure and that's obvious.
And so what are we to be then? If they are thankless, we are to be a thankful people. We thank our God for daily blessings all undeserved. We thank God in blessing and affliction.
We thank him for the wisdom of his law and his word. We thank him for the blessings of gospel truth, the blessings of redemption, the blessings of salvation. Be a thankful people. Secondly,
Cultivating Thankfulness
we are to cultivate our thankfulness. We are to cultivate, nurture, grow our thankfulness. How do we do that? If in the first place we are to be a thankful people, then how do we cultivate that?
How do we grow that? How do we nurture that? I think it's simple, brethren. A large tome, a large book need not be written.
How to cultivate your thankfulness. We're to come to church. Oh, here he goes again. Him and Butler.
Always saying, come to church. Brethren, remember what we looked at before. Oh, come. The psalmist calls for the gathering of the people of God.
Come and give thanks to God. You can give thanks to God Monday through Saturday to be sure. But there is a divinely designed and mandated and commanded gathering wherein that thankfulness is formally expressed. And it's in the corporation, the gathering, the corporate body of Christ in his church.
That's why the psalmist so often rehearses and attaches these things to worship, to commands to gather together in worship. Remember, the new covenant announcements and declarations are no different. Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as is the manner of some. Cultivate your thankfulness by coming to this place.
Yes, you got a cracked pot in the pulpit and you're surrounded by other sinners saved by grace. But brethren, we with one voice raise a voice to God and we give him thanks and praise for so many things. The crowning thing of which is the gospel of free and sovereign grace. Prayer.
How am I to cultivate thankfulness? By prayer. A Christian is a praying man, woman, boy, girl. Go to the Lord in prayer.
Remember, if it is the case that a measure, a hint of anxiety or worry is welling up in you, hear the words of the Apostle Paul again, be anxious in nothing, but with prayer. and supplication mingled with Thanksgiving. Make your requests known to God. Go to our God in prayer. And brethren, you're a Christian.
If you're a Christian, you go to God in prayer. You will find yourselves thanking him. You will find yourselves thanking him because we cannot but arrive at multitudinous benefits when we read his word, when we cast our eyes upon creation and providence. We can't but land on a posture of thanksgiving unto our God for all of his blessed benefits.
The reading of the word. The reading of the word. How do we cultivate our thankfulness? Read your Bibles, brethren, because page after page, as Spurgeon said, chapter after chapter, we find Christ upon the cross working out the salvation of men.
We come to our Bibles and we find an absolute Mine, an absolute treasury of things that we throw into our hymn book of thanksgiving and praise to our God. You go to the book of Psalms, hopefully that is an address of Holy Scripture that you find yourselves often in. Because the psalmists rehearse the multitudinous glories of our God. Kids, multitudinous, another big word.
That just means a lot. I could, we could just probably just say a lot, but to be honest, multitudinous sounds great. Multitudinous glories, riches, excellencies of our God. We come to the Psalms and we have things that will fill our hymn books throughout eternity.
We come to the New Testament. We come through the old, which is Christward in its trajectory. We arrive at the New Testament. Christ has come, and that covenant document of the new covenant ratified in His blood speaks of what?
The glories of Christ. Redemption by Him. The victory of a crucified and resurrected Redeemer. You see, the hymn book that is populated by the riches and the glories of Christ is not three pages long, but it's an inexhaustible hymn book that will launch a multitude of hymns throughout eternity.
We are to read our word, we are to read the scriptures, and we are to take from it the blessed, revealing truths of God, wherein he discloses Christ upon the cross, working out the salvation of sinners. Brethren, baptism in the Lord's Supper. Remember that God has instituted, God has ordained things whereby the grace of faith is strengthened. If you're a believer and you haven't been baptized, be baptized.
Why are you waiting? Why aren't you coming in obedience to Christ to be blessed in that blessed pool. The water has no efficacy. The words of the pastor, the words of the one baptizing you have no efficacy in and of themselves.
But God, through the ordinance, blesses you. Cultivate your thankfulness by thanking God for his redeeming activity, for giving you newness of life. You come up from that water. It's an emergence of thanksgiving.
And as you look back upon that day throughout your life, when you went into those waters of blessed obedience, give thanks to your God for salvation by such a Christ in the Lord's Supper. That is, remember, an ordinance of remembrance and thanksgiving, isn't it? What are we doing? But we're remembering our Christ.
We're remembering his redeeming work. What a blessed thing. We have all of those things to cultivate our thankfulness. And brethren, lastly, we are to rehearse God's goodness and mercy.
We'll get to that tonight. But remember what this thanksgiving is rendered for or what this command to give thanks is to rehearse what follows. Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. When you are thanking your God, you are to rehearse his goodness in your lives and his mercy in your lives at all of those points where his goodness and mercy come.
And that is in all things. But remember that crowning event. Saving of your souls, the work of our Christ, the application, the benefit benefits of his perfect crosswork by the Holy Spirit of our love. We are to remember.
We are to rehearse the goodness and mercy of our God. If you're here this morning and you don't know this Christ, you don't know our God, you don't believe in this one who is to be thanked, this one who is filled and perfect in his goodness and mercy. You are what we described earlier, one who is thankless. There might be some sort of, you know, measure of thankfulness that you have, but it is a godless and a Christless thankfulness.
It's a spiritually ambiguous and atheistic and agnostic thankfulness whereby you're thanking something or someone, but you're leaving the singular one who is to be thanked and praised for all things. You're leaving him. You're not giving him the thanks and the praise that is his due, but rather your futile and your thoughts and your foolish hearts are darkened. The Bible comes and it says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
The Bible says that you've sinned, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. But you see, there is not loss if you close with Christ, there is much loss if you don't. But if you believe on the king, the redeemer, the glorious one who came into this world, sinners to save, who rose again to secure that salvation, who now sits at the right hand of the majesty on high, interceding for all those whom he saved, you close with him and you will give thanks to your God. You will give thanks for your Christ and you will sing the thankfulness of so great a salvation.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. We'll see you tonight. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this psalm that simply discloses the command to give thanks.
And we know that it is not a heavy and burdensome thing. to do so, but rather we cheerfully comply and we pray that you would give us your spirit that we might do so. We would give you thanks that we would honor you, that we would praise you, for there is so much to give you thanks for. We pray that you would help us, that you would give us strength to give you thanks, that you would give us daily that a presence of mind to be found thanking you, our precious God, for all of the benefits that you pour out upon us through Christ Jesus, the Lord. We pray that you would strengthen your saints this day and save sinners, that you would help us, Lord God, to go out into this world this week to be thankful and to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Go with us now, Father. Might all that we do this day, this Lord's Day Sabbath, be done unto the praise of your most high name. And it is in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.