With Mildly Thankful Hearts
Delivered on February 12, 2006
By
The Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
Senior Pastor
Mpittendreigh@goodshepherdpc.org
Psalm 100:1-5
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
INTRODUCTION
I recently came across a list of several things for which we should be thankful.
· for smoke alarms. They let you know when the turkey’s done.
· for automatic dishwashers. They make it possible to get out of the kitchen before the family come in for their after-dinner snacks.
· (this one I found insulting) for husbands who attack small repair jobs around the house. They usually make them big enough to call in professionals.
· (this one you have to listen to very carefully) for children who put away their things and clean up after themselves. They’re such a joy you hate to see them go home to their own parents.
· for gardening. It’s a relief to deal with dirt outside the house for a change.
· for teenagers. They give parents an opportunity to learn a second language.
Well, those are some things for which we are thankful. But for the most part, many of us never even begin to make a list of things for which we are thankful. We simply don’t think about it.
We are continuing our study of the book of Psalms today and we can see on our banner that there are many different types of psalms – there is something for almost every area of your life. Praise, Confession, Laments, and today we look at the psalms of thanksgiving.
Psalm 100 is one of several songs of thanksgiving in the Psalter.
We need to use these types of psalms and prayers in our lives more often than we do – as it is we simply do not thank God nearly enough.
I-JOYFUL THANKS TO GOD IN WORSHIP
A little boy went to a birthday party. On his return, his mother asked, “Bobby, did you thank the lady for the party?"
"Well, I was going to. But a girl ahead of me said, ’Thank you,’ and the lady told her not to mention it -------- So I didn’t."
We all recognize that little Bobby broke a social rule – you always say thanks to your host or hostess. This is true for God too. When it comes to thanking God, we can’t remain silent and we must not remain silent.
But for some reason, thanking God is difficult.
In a television cartoon, Homer Simpson is praying desperately to God. A tornado is bearing down on his home and getting closer and closer. Homer prays, “Oh God, save us from this tornado. If you do, I’ll give up drinking beer, be a better husband and father, and will be in church every Sunday to give you thanks for saving me and my family and our home.”
In the cartoon, you can see the hand of God literally pick up the tornado and the wind dies down and the sun comes out. All is safe.
Homer Simpson responds to this by continuing his prayer, “Never mind God, the tornado died down on its own.” Thus he continues to be a heavy drinker, a questionable husband and father, and never gives thanks to God for saving him and his family.
The psalmist knows we ought to thank God for his gifts. Listen to what he says:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs...
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
God wants us to thank Him. We should want to thank Him and, in fact, must thank Him as the Giver of every good thing.
II JOYFUL THANKS BECAUSE OF HIS GOODNESS
Now, one of the things that Thanksgiving Psalms have in common is that they all have a reason to give thanks to God.
Why do we want to give God joyful thanks? What has He done for us? Why are we to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise?
The psalmist tell us: "For the Lord is good ..." He talks about how God created us and guides us as a shepherd . The psalmist talks about how God’s love endures forever.
If you look at some of the other psalms of thanksgiving, you will not see these reasons for thanking God. You will see other reasons.
In Psalm 9, the reason for giving thanks is that the person feels the justice of God has prevailed.
Alan Crotzer was convicted of crimes of rape and robbery in 1981. He was sentenced to 103 years in prison. At the time the 21 year old man insisted that he was innocent. The 21 year old spent 24 years behind bars. Now 45 years old, he was released from prison last month, after DNA testing proved his innocence.
Imagine that happening to you. There is no way anyone can give him back half his life. Imagine the anger you would feel at the injustice. But Crotzer does not appear angry. In a television interview, he said he was just thankful to God that he was proven innocent and released from prison. He went onto say, “God is so good.”
Maybe justice is your reason to give thanks – maybe it is something else.
In Psalm 30, the reason for giving thanks is that the person has recovered from illness. The psalmist says, “O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O LORD, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me.”
Several years ago, my sister was facing a grave illness. She had been waiting for a transplant and there was no organ available. One night she was rushed to the hospital and it seemed that death was imminent. There was no hope for her to live through the night. Being involved in a research and development program in a major hospital, however, she was given the opportunity for a surgical procedure that had been tried on only two or three other patients. Hours later she woke up from surgery and went onto live another 6 years. Those were 6 precious years, allowing her to live to see her two children finish college. She went to both of her children’s weddings. She saw the birth of three of her grandchildren.
There are some people who know full well the thankfulness of the psalmist, “O Lord, you brought me up from the grave, you spared me.”
Maybe health and healing are your reasons to give thanks – maybe it is something else.
In Psalm 32, the reason for giving thanks is that the person has felt forgiven.
Ps 32:1-2
1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
(NIV)
In A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, Ron Lee Davis retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God’s forgiveness.
In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest, however, was skeptical. To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary." The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked., "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?"
"Yes, he did," she replied.
"And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?"
"Yes."
“Well, what did he say?"
"He said, ’I don’t remember’"
What God forgives, He forgets.
Those of you who have been the recipient of God’s forgiveness will understand how thankful you should be when you feel the power of God’s mercy.
Maybe mercy beyond imagination is your reason to give thanks – maybe it is something else.
In Psalm 40, the reason for giving thanks is that the person feels freedom from depression. You can hear and feel the fatigue in the writer’s words as the psalmist says, “I waited patiently for the LORD.”
But then you can also hear the peace in the writer’s words as he continues, “The Lord turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.”
Have you waited patiently for the Lord in your life, and then found that God has brought you to the place where you needed to be. Is this your reason to be thankful to God – or is there a different reason?
In Psalm 41, the reason for giving thanks is being saved from slander.
At the start of the McCarthy era, Floridian Claude Pepper, one of the Senate’s most outspoken liberals, was on the conservatives’ “hit list” along with many other senators. George Smathers lashed out with some typical right-wing accusation—he called his opponent “the Red Pepper”—and he launched a campaign to expose Pepper’s secret “vices.”
Smathers disclosed that Pepper was “a known extrovert,” his sister was a “thespian,” and his brother a “practicing homo sapiens.” Also, when Pepper went to college, he actually “matriculated.” Worst of all, he “practiced celibacy” before marriage. Naturally, rural voters were horrified, and Pepper lost. (Book of Lists No. 2, pp. 36-37)
Now we can smile at that kind of slander story, but the reality is that slander is a painful experience for the victim.
Your office workers spread rumors about you. Your classmates lie about you.
It hurts.
You can sense how painful it is in the words of the psalmist, who wrote, “Whenever one comes to see me, he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander; then he goes out and spreads it abroad . . . Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. But you, O LORD, have mercy on me; raise me up, that I may repay them.”
At the end of the Psalm, the writer says, “I know that you are pleased with me, for my enemy does not triumph over me. In my integrity you uphold me and set me in your presence forever. Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.”
So what is your specific reason for giving thanks to God?
Is it your job?
Is it your family?
Is it your health?
Is it something special that has happened in your life?
Is it something bad that has not happened in your life?
The problem that many of us have is not the absence of great nd wonderful gifts from God. It is that we have received these gifts from God and we are only mildly thankful.
We are not going to God in prayer to give thanks.
God gives us so much – and yet we are so mild in our thanks.
Have you ever seen a child pour Coca-Cola in a glass? They take the can and open it. Then they take a glass that is not quite large enough. They begin to pour and the glass becomes full. And for some reason they feel like they have to get every last drop into the glass, so they keep pouring, and the glass fills to the brim and overflows.
That is the way it is with God. He gives us so many gifts, showers us with love.
One of the most familiar psalms in the Bible is the 23rd Psalm, and one of the most familiar phrases is, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”
Our cup of life overflows – why is our thankfulness so mild?
CONCLUSION
Our God is good. He is so good. Therefore, says the Psalmist, Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
The Lord is good. He is so good. Only one response is possible: we must now give Him our joyful thanks.
Copyright 2006, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com
