OPEN: A farmer was sitting down to breakfast at local restaurant and bowed his head in prayer.
A couple of young men at the next table thought that was a bit odd and they made fun of him quietly as he prayed. When he finished his prayer, they chided him: “Hey old man, does everybody pray over their meals out on the farm?”
The man thought about that for a second, smiled back and replied. “Well, no. The pigs don’t.”
APPLY: There are people who are thankful in this world, and there are people who aren’t. One of the themes in Scripture is that God’s people should always be a thankful people
Psalm 147 is a psalm of praise. A psalm of prayer. A psalm of thanksgiving. And such a prayer is not that uncommon throughout Scripture. Again and again you see men and women of God lifting up their hearts and praising God. Giving Him thanks.
In addition, the Scriptures constantly admonishes us to “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving…” Colossians 4:2-3
AND
“…in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Philippians 4:6
The Bible repeatedly tells again and again that we need to
Praise God,
Thank God
Lift His name on high
Thanksgiving should be something that permeates our every prayer.
I. So, if it is true, that God’s people should always be thankful people, why does the Bible seem to constantly remind us to be thankful?
Well, because thanksgiving doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people
ILLUS: Years ago, comedian Will Rogers observed:
“Thanksgiving day. In the days of our founders, they were willing to give thanks for mighty little, for mighty little was what they expected. But now, neither government nor nature can give enough but what we think it’s too little. Those old boys in the fall of the year, if they could gather in a few pumpkins, potatoes and some corn for the winter, they were in a thankful mood.
If we can’t gather in a new Buick, a new radio, a tuxedo and some government relief, why, we feel that the world is against us.”
You would think it would uncharacteristic for a Christian to be an ungrateful person, and yet Christians can fall victim to a complaining and grumbling mindset. What would cause us to cause us to take so much for granted?
Well, because we often fail to take the advice of Scripture. It comes down to the matter of an old song we sing: “Count Your Many Blessings” – sing it with me…
"When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost
Count your many blessing, name them one by one
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done
Count your blessings, name them one by one
Count your blessings see what God has done
Count your blessings, name them one by one
Count your many blessings see what God has done."
People become ungrateful… because they don’t do that.
They don’t stop to think about what God has done.
They don’t stop to thank God for what they have.
They don’t stop to count the blessings they’ve received from God.
That’s why Psalms like Psalm 147 focus - not just on praising God - but on WHY we should praise God. Look again at just the first 5 verses
“Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!” (it seems so natural to praise him, so right to glorify his name…)
Why? Because…
“The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”
We serve a great God… and He does great things.
And He does a lot of those great things for us.
Throughout the Psalm, the writer says that God…
§ Heals our broken hearts
§ Binds up our wounds
§ Sustains the humble
§ Supplies rain for the fields
§ Provides food for our cattle
§ Strengthens the bars of our gates
§ Blesses our people
§ Grants us peace
§ And grants us food
The psalmist is making a list of things to be thankful for. He’s counting his blessings… naming them one by one.
G.K. Chesterfield observed that one of the greatest lessons he had learned in his life was that he could either take things FOR GRANTED… or he could take things WITH GRATITUDE. And that made all the difference in his life.
So, one of the first things we need to realize about thanksgiving is: it doesn’t come easily for most of us and so we need to learn to focus on the blessings we have received.
II. 2ndly God’s people need to be filled with thanks because of the kind of God we serve.
We of all people have the greatest reason to be thankful because we serve a God who actually cares for us.
Hebrews 13:5 tells us “…He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’"
1 Peter 5:6-7 advises us to “…humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”
And one of my favorites: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32
So, you would think that God’s people would always be thankful people… that praise would just ooze out of them. But that’s not always true. God’s people are not always thankful people.
The books of Exodus and Numbers tell the story of the Israelites as they left the slavery of Egypt and made their way across the desert to the Promised Land. Again and again they say great and wondrous miracles
· they saw the plagues destroy the power of the Egyptians
· observed the Red Sea being parted
· and then watched as those same waters crushed in on the pursuing Egyptian army and destroyed the might of Egypt.
· In addition, while they were in the desert, they saw God supply food and water for them repeatedly in the desert
They saw miracle after miracle after miracle…
And yet… again and again
· “the people complained against Moses…" Exodus 15:24
· “Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron….” Exodus 16:2
· “… the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses...” Exodus 17:3
· “And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!’” Numbers 14:2
These people of God repeatedly saw some of the greatest miracles ever recorded in Scripture and yet all they seemed to do in the desert was complain.
ILLUS: People like that remind of the story of the grandmother who took her grandson to ocean. They were walking along the shore when a huge wave appeared out of nowhere, sweeping the child out to sea. The horrified woman fell to her knees, raised her eyes to the heavens and begged the Lord to return her beloved grandson.
And lo, another wave reared up and deposited the stunned child on the sand before her. The grandmother looked the boy over carefully. He was fine. But still she stared up angrily toward the heavens. "When we came," she snapped indignantly, "he had a hat."
Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? And yet, that’s how we can sound to God if we allow ourselves to find fault, grumble, and complain. These should be warning signs for us. They should alert us to the fact that we’re still immature in our faith.
But, by contrast, when we gain maturity in our faith… when we learn to be truly grateful to God even in the midst of tragedy and loss… we can change the lives of those around us.
ILLUS: Jack Hinton from New Bern, N. Carolina tells of the time he was on a short-term missions trip to the island of Tobago. He was leading worship at the leper colony there and there was time for one more song, so he asked if anyone had a request.
A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned around.
“It was the most hideous face I had ever seen,” Hinton said. “The woman’s nose and ears were entirely gone. The disease had destroyed her lips as well. She lifted a fingerless hand in the air and asked, ‘Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?’”
Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service.
He was followed by another team member who said, “Jack, I guess you’ll never be able to sing that song again.”
“Yes I will,” he replied, “but I’ll never sing the same way.”
Hinton was shaken by the fact that a person who had so much less to be thankful for than he did… and yet, she wanted to sing praises to God. She wanted to sing about her MANY blessings.
Her spirit of thanksgiving changed how he viewed that song, and how he viewed his relationship with God… for all time.
A spirit of thanksgiving effects the people around us… and it changes how they look at God.
So, let me revue.
· As God’s people we need to realize that thankfulness doesn’t come naturally to us, but it is something we can learn to do
· And as God’s people we need to realize how our attitude of thankfulness can be a witness to the God we love.
· And lastly, I want to share with you something that I had never realized until I read this Psalm. We serve a thankful God.
III. I didn’t realize that until I began to study this particular psalm
But the closer I looked at the words of this psalm I realized this was true:
Our God is a thankful God.
Now frankly, we don’t ordinarily think of God as being thankful. He’s God (after all) - why would He need to be thankful for anything.
But he is… look again at Psalms 147:10-11
“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.”
Notice what these verses are saying:
God IS God.
He doesn’t NEED anybody or anything.
Even the powers of this world don’t impress Him.
“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man” Ps 147:10
But there IS something that DOES impress Him. Something that delights Him. Something for which He is thankful.
· God is thankful for the ones who fear Him…
· And He’s thankful for those who put their hope in His unfailing love.
God is thankful for these kinds of people.
In fact, the Bible tells us that God is SO thankful for this type of individual that He seeks for a way to reward them: 2 Chronicles 16:9 says "… the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him….”
Now, that idea - that God can be thankful – impresses me. Because this very idea implies that
· I can do something that pleases God
· I can supply something that fills Him with delight. That can make Him thankful.
Just picture this if you will:
This Thanksgiving, you’re going sit down at a dinner table and you’re going to eat your thanksgiving meal. I know there will be many families here that will take time to reflect upon what they can be thankful for.
This Thanksgiving, I want you to picture Jesus sitting down at His table. I want you to picture Him looking down at the earth and visualize Him thinking about you and leaning over to one His angels and saying:
“I’m thankful for that man there.
That woman over there delights me.”
You realize, that’s what the Bible says Jesus does, don’t you?
Luke 12:8 tells us that Jesus “…I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God.”
Every time, you and I brag on Jesus. Every time, you or I praise His name, Jesus leans over to an angel and He points to us… and He gives thanks.
Because we belong to Him
Because we fear Him above anything else in this world… and we love Him above all else
And we put our hope in His unfailing love so much that we want to tell others about His love for us.
CLOSE: When people look at us they need to see thankful and joyful people… because we serve a thankful and joyful God.
That hasn’t always been so. There was a time when some Christians viewed righteousness as the equivalent of sternness and unhappiness. There used to be a saying that Christians looked like they’d been weaned on sour pickles and raised on prune juice.
Sternness and a humorless expression were mistaken for holiness.
But holiness and righteousness isn’t like that. God’s holy and righteous people ought always to be those filled with gratefulness and joy of their Faith.
ILLUS: Joseph Hayden was one of the greatest composers of his day. But not everybody appreciated his music at the time. When he wrote music for the church, people complained because it was too joyful. It didn’t reflect the reverence and stern holiness they believed God wanted. But Hayden rightly understood that wasn’t what God wanted at all.
"I cannot help it. I give forth what is in me. When I think of the Divine Being, my heart is so full of joy that the notes fly off as from a spindle. And as I have a cheerful heart, He will pardon me if I serve Him cheerfully."
