A SONG OF THANKSGIVING
My four-year-old likes to say the blessing at mealtimes, usually repeating the same short prayer: "Thank you, God, for this gracious food. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen."
One evening, however, he thanked the Lord for the birds, the trees, each of his friends, and asked God to watch over his family and help them to be good. I was thrilled that he was finally praying from the heart.
But after the "Amen," he took a spoonful of stew, gasped, then dropped his spoon into the bowl. "I should have said a longer prayer," he said. "My food is still too hot." - Catherine Jones, Kerrville, Texas. Christian Reader, "Kids of the Kingdom."
How many of you are ready to take time to thank God this year? He has certainly blessed us, hasn’t He? But I wonder how many people this year will be giving thanks with their lips, while their hearts remain pretty much apathetic. We will spend Thursday eating too much, watching TV, maybe doing a few things that we want to do (if that means only getting a nap!) without really stopping to consider how good God has been to us!
I think it is fitting on this Sunday before Thanksgiving to read the words of this song of worship for the Sabbath day. This psalm tells us that thanksgiving is not just praying as we wait for the food to cool off, or words of appreciation given once a year to appease God. This psalm tells us it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord!
As we take time this week to count our blessings, and give thanks to our God Who has given these blessings, today I would like to especially look in Psalm 92:1-5 at how good it is that we can make a habit of thankfulness, as we remember the reasons we have to be thankful, and understand the danger of failing to offer God the thanks He deserves.
I. IT IS GOOD TO THANK GOD (v. 1-3)
The psalmist says that it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. But what does he mean by good? How is giving thanks to God a good thing?
First of all, we can say gratitude is good because God deserves our thanks. It is only proper that we
realize that all the good things that we enjoy have come from Him. When someone gives us a gift, it is only right and proper that we thank them for their generosity. We owe God thanks because He has been good to us. The Bible sums up the bounty of God to us in
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Did you notice the word every in this verse? That leaves nothing out. All the gifts that we will ever enjoy in this life- from the pleasure of a summer day as a kid, to the smile on our children’s faces- all are gifts He has given us. It is true- everything good comes from God.
But there is another reason that it is good to give thanks to God in these verses, and that is because it will bring us delight. The psalmist mentions proclamation (to shew forth), acclamation (making music with the ten stringed instrument and harp) and meditation (the word solemn here does not mean somber but thoughtfully.) Altogether, we see here that thanksgiving is not just to be a duty but a delight.
The idea here is that as we consider God’s goodness to us, our hearts are to well up with praise and thankfulness to the Giver of all the good things that we have received. With our words, our songs, and our thoughts, we are to find joy in thanking Him!
You have much to thank God for this morning. How are you showing that thanksgiving?
Are you aware that all that you enjoy in this life has come from Him? Every raindrop is a jewel of His love. Every sunrise is a reminder that He has given you a day for Him to bless you. Every mouthful of food you enjoy not only this Thursday, but every day, is given to you by a God who cares about you. Do you care enough about Him to give Him thanks?
Have you discovered the joy of expressing your thanks to God for His gifts? Part of the joy of receiving a gift is telling others about it. You may not sing solos in front of other people, but God enjoys hearing you sing praise to Him- you should too! As you think of all that God has given you that you do not deserve, does your heart well up with thankful joy that shows on the outside? This is why it is good to give thanks to the Lord- He deserves it, and we can enjoy it!
One rainy morning a depressed man went to a small neighborhood restaurant for breakfast. Although several people were at the diner, no one was speaking to anyone else. Our miserable friend hunched over the counter, stirring his coffee with a spoon. In one of the booths was a young mother with a little girl. They had just been served their food when the little girl broke the sad silence by almost shouting, "Momma, why don’t we say our prayers here?" The waitress turned around and said, "Sure, honey, we pray here. Will you say the prayer for us?" And she turned and looked at the rest of the people in the restaurant and said, "Bow your heads." Surprisingly, one by one, the heads went down. The little girl bowed her head, folded her hands, and said, "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food. Amen."
That prayer changed the entire atmosphere. People began to talk with one another. The waitress said, "We should do that every morning." "All of a sudden," said our friend, "my whole frame of mind started to improve. From that little girl’s example, I started to thank God for all that I did have and stop majoring in all that I didn’t have. I started to choose happiness." - Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 4.
II. WHAT WE SHOULD THANK GOD FOR (v. 4-5)
Gratitude is from the same root word as "grace," which signifies the free and boundless mercy of God. Thanksgiving is from the same root work as "think," so that to think is to thank. - Willis P. King
The psalmist invites us to look around at God’s works, listen to His thoughts, and consider His love as subjects of our thankful praise. What has God done that should make us glad and thankful?
He has created us What is the work of His hands but all that is? He has made all things and all
people, including you and me.
Psalm 139:13,14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (NIV)
It is sadly true that some people sometimes foolishly wish that they had never been born, but we really don’t mean it. There are terrible things that happen to us in this life, but there are also joys that we can see (if we look for them) that make our lives all worthwhile. (Lucy: I’d hate it if I weren’t around!; It’s a Wonderful Life! ). Most of all, if we had never been created, we would never have the opportunity to know the joy of being loved by God! No, you and I are part of the wonderful work of God, and for that we should be thankful!
He has cares about us Even though God has made us, we may still ask the question the psalmist asked:
Psalm 144:3 LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!
At Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt and I used to play a little game together. After an evening of talk, we would go out on the lawn and search the skies until we found the faint spot of light-mist beyond the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then one or the other of us would recite: "That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one billion suns, each larger than our sun." Then Roosevelt would grin and say: "Now I think we are small enough! Let’s go to bed." - William Beebe
You and I are sometimes tempted to live as if we were the center of the universe, but we are really only a small part of all that God has made. Do you ever ask yourself Why does God care about me so much? Among the billions of beings that have ever existed, all of those that man keeps count of only with a number, He knows me and cares about what happens to me?
If you doubt that you are on His mind, let me remind you of Jesus’ words:
Matthew 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
But God’s greatest concern for you is that you be saved from sin. Instead of leaving you to be condemned to an eternal hell, He sent His Son to die for you so that you can enjoy eternal life.
John 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Our hearts should be filled with gratitude for the works of God. He has not only made all things (including us), but He is concerned about the work of His hands. He has not made us, and left us to do the best we can- He has made us the apple of His eye. He has even gone so far as to send His Son to die for us, so that we have the opportunity to be saved from our sins and live forever in Heaven! This is why He made us- to know Him and enjoy Him forever! Our hearts should be full of thanksgiving!
III. WHO WOULD NOT THANK GOD? (v. 6)
But the psalmist strikes a somber note in his song by reminding us that not everyone is full of thanks to God. We can divide these people into 2 categories: the ignorant and the arrogant.
The brutish man could be translated the senseless man. They are those who go through life giving little or no thought to the generosity of God. To be sure, they enjoy the blessings of God, but they sense no responsibility to thank God for them. They spend all of their time and energy seeking their own comfort and pleasure, and so tend to believe that it is really themselves they have to thank for all they have and enjoy. In a sense, they live like and animal, looking for satisfaction only in a nice home, good food, and plenty of gratification of all their earthly desires. They find joy only in the gift, but not in the Giver of those gifts.
The foolish man could be translated the arrogant man. This man may have many of the characteristics of the brutish man with one exception- he has chosen not to be thankful. This person realizes that God has given them all the good things that they have, but they refuse to thank God by living their lives to honor Him. They may thank God with their lips, but their hearts have never thanked Him enough to bend the knee and surrender to God as the Lord of their lives. They will acknowledge God on Sundays and holidays, but they do not acknowledge Him in the most important way- with hearts of faith and obedience.
Are there really people who are so ignorant and so arrogant that they can live without giving thanks to God? Are there some whose sentiments can be echoed by the prayer of the TV character Bart Simpson, who prays
We made all of this stuff on our own, So thanks for nothing!
The Bible clearly tells us in this song that there are.
Romans 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
The strange thing is that people like this can sit in churches, and sing songs out of the hymnal, and go home and say grace over turkey and dressing in a nice warm house, surrounded by those they love, healthy and in need of nothing, and still never have a thankful heart. They can even say the words to this song of Psalm of praise, but they can never sing it with their hearts.
You see, gratitude to God is a response to the grace of God. God has given each of us physical and material blessings that are greater than any other nation in history. We enjoy a standard of living above almost any other nation on earth. We have so much in one sense, but without Jesus living in our hearts and lives, we really have nothing.
2000 years ago, Jesus spoke these words to a group of people that had plenty of earthly things to be thankful for:
Revelation 3:17,18 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
They had money, and health, and clothes, and many other things that they could be thankful for, but they were missing one thing- Jesus. Without Him they were poor. Without Him they were blind to what was really valuable. Without Him they were naked and lost.
Our biggest problem in the church today is this vast majority of Sunday morning Christians who claim to have known the Master’s cure and who return not [at other times] to thank Him by presence, prayer, testimony and support of His church. In fact, the whole Christian life is one big "Thank You," the living expression of our gratitude to God for His goodness. But we take Him for granted and what we take for granted we never take seriously. - Vance Havner
As you get ready to celebrate this wonderful time of Thanksgiving, is there a song in your heart of thanks to God? I am not asking can you work up a feeling that is not there- I am asking, are you responding to God’s grace in your life with joyful thanks, not just for the material blessings that He has showered us all with, but is your heart full of thanks for the great gift of salvation through Jesus Christ? If God had not given you one single blessing this year, could your eyes still brim with tears, and your heart still leap for joy at knowing that Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord? Is your spirit singing this morning a song of thankful praise to the Redeemer of your soul this morning?
If not, let me invite you to come to this altar this morning. Come because you realize you need to know Him this morning.
Come because you have let your love for Him grow cold, and your heart has become unthankful for the blessing that really counts.
Come out of gratitude for what He has done for you.
This year, let us experience the joy of this song of praise, that tells us It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.
