Let the Thankful Be Thankful

You can turn to Psalm 107, which is going to be our text this morning. It is probably the most obvious and logical place in all of scripture to go to, the book of Psalms, to talk about thanksgiving. We're gonna read from verse one. Psalm 107, verse one: let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Verse one: I give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from trouble and gathered from the lands, from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in.

Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man, for He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons. For they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the council of the most high. So He bowed their hearts down with hard labour. They fell down with none to help.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man, for He shatters the doors of bronze and cuts into the bars of iron. Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities, suffered affliction. They loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He sent out His word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man and let them offer sacrifice of thanksgiving and tell of His deeds and songs of joy. Some went down to the sea and ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep.

For He commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, then they went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight. They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress.

He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet and He brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol Him in the congregation of the people and praise Him in the assembly of the elders. He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste because of the evil of its inhabitants.

He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water. And there, He lets the hungry dwell and they establish a city to live in. They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. By His blessing, they multiply greatly and He does not let their livestock diminish. When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, evil and sorrow, He pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless waste, but He raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks.

The upright see it and are glad and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. This is God's word. Psalm 107 is a thanksgiving psalm.

There are many different genres of psalms. As we know, there are psalms of distress or psalms of trust. There are psalms of praise and thanksgiving. There are psalms of the Messiah, psalms of royalty talking about the king or the king to come. This is a psalm of thanksgiving, and as we see, it's actually a collection of personal individual stories.

Sometimes, we find King David writing a psalm of thanksgiving that's very personal of God personally saving him, and there are four stories here collected together and uniquely put together in order to communally encourage believers to praise God. Psalm 107 celebrates the deliverance of God both in the lives of individuals, but then collectively, the life of the church. Specifically, it celebrates and praises God for positive answers to prayer. Again and again, we see in places like verse six, verse thirteen, nineteen, and so on, this repeated phrase: they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. In other words, God has answered prayer.

And now, the people have come together having heard the stories, the testimonies like we heard from Mali and they collectively praise God for His answer to those prayers. But this psalm has a distinct wisdom element to it, and we see that at the start in verse one and at the end in verse 43, there is an imperative for God's people to do, to listen to, and to act out. At the start, we find a summary statement for the psalm. Verses one and two give us the explanation of what is going to be fleshed out further by the psalm. Firstly, we are told to give thanks to God.

Why? For He is good and His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever. And then in verse two, we find how this should happen.

And we're told, let the redeemed tell their story. Let the redeemed tell their story so that we may hear how God has been good, and we may give thanks and praise to Him in return. Now these two opening verses give us that big picture of what the rest of the psalm expresses. We've read about different stories, wanderers in the deserts, prisoners in dark places, people who have been seriously ill, sailors on the sea needing to be rescued from the storm, and all of them testify to God answering their prayers. And they are now giving God thanks.

But the thing that we get from the psalm isn't that we are to be sailors or wanderers in the deserts or people that should be ill, we are told two things. Firstly, the redeemed need to say the Lord is good. That's the one imperative we need to say that the Lord is good. God, we are shown here, allows people to go through all sorts of hardship. Specifically, in the story of the sailors on the sea, it is God who lifts the waves up.

It is God who sends the storm. God, in other words, in the Bible, isn't shy about causing hardship to exist in our lives. But instead of being terrifying experiences of pointless chaos, we are again being shown that there is a purpose behind it. It is guided, these hardships, by a loving hand. And one of the purposes of these hardships, we find again this morning, is to make us think about things other than comfort.

Psalm 107 gives us plenty of examples of hardship. In verses 4 to 9, we find the description of people going through wastelands. They are restless. They have no home, no city to dwell in, it says. And then, in verses 10 to 16, we are shown prisoners sitting in darkness, doing hard labour for crimes.

And importantly, we are told that they are there because of their rebellion against God. Verses 17 to 22, we are shown people who wrestle with some sort of illness. Some commentators believe they're talking about mental illness because even as they are offered food, they refuse to take it. But we know, obviously, that sometimes people can be so ill that they can't eat. Verse 18, however, tells us the end result.

It causes them to draw near to the gates of death. They are at death's door. And then, still others in verses 23 to 32 are perhaps merchants who have gone out on the sea to make a living, trading. They are ambitious for wealth and power, but they are caught in a terrible storm on the ocean. Now, in each of these terrifying cases, we find one common thread, and that is that they prayed to God.

They cried out to the Lord in their distress, and God came through for them. God is shown to be a deliverer. Why? In order for us to enjoy the blessing of this life and to see His redemption in order for Him to receive our praise. Ask yourself, why does God restore things?

Why is God known to be a redeemer? Well, philosophically, it must mean that the original state that existed before things got bad is inherently good. You redeem something by returning it to its original good condition. And so, as we heard this morning from Mali, the Bible and Christianity hold a very different position to Eastern mysticism that says that life is yin and yang, good and bad. Unlike Buddhism or Hinduism, the Bible tells us good is good and bad is bad.

And God is concerned about restoring people's lives to good. But here's the thing that many people, including maybe us Christians today wrestle with. If one of the consequences for allowing people to go through hardship is to make us look up, which is what happened here, they cried out in their distress. If one of the consequences for allowing us to go through hardship is to make us look up, then God would consider that hardship a good thing. Because one of the results of God delivering us from those hard things is to make the Christian realise what?

This: that the Lord is good and His steadfast love endures forever. Author Philip Yancey once wrote, it is a terrible thing to be grateful and have no one to thank. To be awed and have no one to worship. It's a terrible thing to be grateful and have no one to thank, to be awed and have no one to worship. The first imperative from Psalm 107 is a call for all the redeemed, meaning all of God's people, for we have all been redeemed, to know and to profess that the Lord is good, that His love endures forever.

So that's the first thing. Let all the redeemed say, let all the redeemed acknowledge the Lord is good. But then the second imperative we find is right at the end of the Psalm, and that is that the redeemed need to give thanks to the Lord. Verse 43, we are told to attend to these things. Whoever is wise, let them attend to these things.

Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. What do we attend to? To consider the steadfast love of God. What does it mean to attend? Well, to intentionally make time to consider, reflect, and then give praise to God.

We attend to His steadfast love by corporately worshipping Him as what is happening here in this corporate psalm of thanksgiving. It means we become intentionally quiet during our weeks to pray, to read our Bible, to go to Bible study, to talk to Christians about God, to encourage one another in our walk with God. We can attend to reflecting on God's unwavering love by listening to podcasts, to singing worship songs, playing in the car. These are all aspects of this intentional act of giving thanks to God. This word, which we find a couple of times in this psalm, well, more than a couple of times in this psalm is the word steadfast love, which is actually just one word in Hebrew, which is famously, and I'm sure if I got you to say it out loud, you would know it.

It's the Hebrew word hesed, which is a very special type of love that God has for His covenant people. It's hard to try and summarise. People call it His merciful love, His gracious love, His unfailing love or steadfast love as translated by the ESV. And a commentator I read this week, I think gave it a really nice translation as well: His loyal love.

It's the love of God He places on the people He has chosen to love, and He cannot do anything but love them. This is the love God said He would give to His people out of His electing grace to them. Over and over again in this psalm, are all these people who have found themselves in very difficult situations. Now, they share their testimonies to the church congregation and the church together recognise that God has been good and they give Him praise. In all of these or across all of these different contexts for how He has answered prayer.

Christian, friend, let me tell you that your spiritual life is going to be supremely unfulfilling, supremely dull if you don't elevate your mind to regularly giving God thanks. You won't last as a Christian. You won't last as a member in this church if you can't recognise the instances in your life that the Lord has been good. You'll become a bitter, tired, I wanna say almost waste of space. What we see here is the reminder that thanksgiving takes intentionality.

It takes stopping and reflecting. It means tracing back over prayers that you've prayed in the past weeks, past months, and thinking about how God has answered them. And I can tell you, I'll put my hand up and say it's a challenge. It is a challenge to remember. I can hardly remember the sermon I preached last week, let alone remember every moment I've shot a prayer up to God and say, God, please help me in this.

God, please keep me safe on the road today. Bring me back home safe. And how many times have I come at the end of the day and I've been safe, and I trust that God has brought me home safe, and I don't say thanks? If we were to do that, every single time, if we were to close the loop on all our prayers, can you imagine what a thankful life you would have? What a grateful life you would have for all the answered prayers that God has given you?

See, we only see the things that God hasn't answered, and we become sad, and we become bitter about those things. Ninety-nine percent of the time, God has answered and He has answered abundantly. Your spiritual life, my spiritual life, will never look the same again if we can perfect the habit of giving thanks to God. I've told you the story of my nephew, Noah. A few different stories over the past few years.

I remember a few years ago when Noah was just starting to talk and his parents were teaching him good manners by saying thank you when they gave him his lunch or when they gave him his juice box or whatever. Thank you, Mummy. Thank you, Daddy. But at one point, he went through a stage that I think happens from time to time and I look forward to little Alida coming through this as well. And maybe, Mick, you can tell us whether you've experienced that as well.

But instead of saying thank you, Daddy, Noah started playing a game and was starting to say thank you, Mummy, when it was Dad that gave him his lunch. And he thought it was hilarious. Now, his dad understood, thankfully, that it was a bit of a joke. So for a time, he was dramatically huffing and puffing, outraged that Noah would do this, calling him Mummy. The game was fun for my brother-in-law until it wasn't fun anymore.

It was nice to see Noah giggle and squeal at how clever he thought he was being and how silly it was to call his dad by his mum's name. But then, all of a sudden, dad wasn't happy anymore, not being thanked properly for having done something nice for his boy. And so, Noah was reprimanded. No. I'm Daddy and you're gonna say thank you, Daddy.

Noah's a good boy and that's what he did. God deserves to be acknowledged when He has given us the things we need or have asked for. And if we truly believe and recognise that our sovereign God and Father has given us every good thing in our life, then He deserves thanks for just about everything in our life. The fun in the games ended when Noah's dad felt slightly annoyed when he didn't get a proper thing. How unfair is it when God does all the work and yet gets zero acknowledgement in our lives?

Our God is pouring out answered prayer after answered prayer. But because of our busyness or perhaps our lack of reflection, we don't say thanks and perhaps we put those good things down as a stroke of good luck. Psalm 107 reminds us, whoever is wise, whoever is wise, do you think you are wise? Let him attend to these things. Let him consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

So this morning, as we celebrate two thousand and twenty-two and there are many things to celebrate: a pastor that is full time, a budget that is balanced, a wonderful facility for us to meet in and then individually, so many good things. Answered prayers, families coming to family members coming to know the Lord, serious illnesses that have been restored by God. We need to be wise and acknowledge God and His goodness and then praise and give Him thanks for what He has done. Let's pray.

Oh Lord, may we pursue this life-giving wisdom to remember and reflect often on the steadfast love of our God. We know, Lord, that You deserve the glory and so if You were to say this to us, command it to us simply because You deserve it, we would stand to do it. We must do it as Your subjects, people, and yet, Lord, You have blessed us doubly because we know that our experience of life, our perception of reality is just so much better when we have thankful hearts. Help us, Lord, to have perspective to see the goodness all around us. And Lord, help us as we have seen this morning to celebrate and thank You, and thank You for the love You've given to those around us.

As we hear the stories of Mali, as we hear of those that You have rescued, as we see You mend and heal John and Tehya, Lord, help us to not simply give lip service, but to find great joy in seeing You move in those ways. Father, we confess that sometimes we forget. Help us not to do that. We say sorry for not acknowledging You, for taking for granted the things that You do, perhaps even playing games and giving attribution to blind luck, our skill, our ability for the things that we have received, Lord. Help us to never ever forget.

You deserve all our thanks, and we will try to give it to You. In Jesus' name. Amen.