“Gratitude Remembers” – Psalm 105:5

So…why are you here? Most of you know that is one of my favorite questions to ask. I believe it helps us to remember the reasons why we are supposed to be here even if sometimes that may not be the case. But have you ever asked yourself that question before; not as a deep theological introspection but maybe you have gone into a room from another room in your house and then forgot why you went in there? And you asked yourself, “Why am I in here?”

 

I read an article in Psychology Today (because I have that kind of time evidently) that said that situation is more common than you might expect and that there is a reason for it that you might not have ever thought of. Dr. Ira E. Hyman says, “I have some good news for you. It isn’t you and it isn’t evidence of age-related declines. It’s the doorway. Walking through doorways empties your mind. Doorways really cause forgetting.”

 

He goes on to describe how that happens; something about how our minds construct models of our environments and when we walk into a new room the mind drops the old model and makes a new one and many times the reason we went into that room is dropped as well. I’ll just take his word for it and since this happens to me fairly often, I’m glad to know there is a reason for it.

 

And maybe that is one reason why the Bible tells us to remember things so many times. God knows that we are going to read it or hear it in our homes or in our church and then leave and we will forget what we are supposed to remember. The 10 Commandments tell us to, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” In Deuteronomy 7 it says to remember what the Lord did. Even God is said to remember things. In Genesis 9, God says that when He sees the rainbow in the clouds that He will remember His covenant.

 

Now, my favorite verse in the whole Bible says to “forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past.” (Isaiah 43:18) It means that we are to forget the bad things in our lives and to concentrate on the good things that God is going to do. In fact, I would suggest that we forget everything that we have done in the past whether good or bad and concentrate on what God has done and is going to do even if it may be painful because everything God does is good. Do you believe that?

 

That’s what the Bible says so I hope you do. 3 times just in the book of Psalms it says that. Psalm 25, 73 and 86: Good and upright is the Lord, truly God is good and for you Lord, are good. Plus there are many more places where it reminds us that God is good and that is what we are supposed to remember.

 

That is what David is telling us to do in our passage this morning in Psalm 105. Remember the good things God has done and the ways that He has protected and provided in the face of evil and when the entire world seems against you.  When you remember those times, you can’t help but be grateful.  Let’s read that passage again from Psalm 105:1-5 but our focus will be on just verse 5.

 

Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.  ² Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.  ³ Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.  ⁴ Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.  ⁵ Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,

I read a funny story the other day written by a guy who said that when he was a kid his parents would take the kids to the same vacation spot every summer somewhere up in the mountains by a lake.  And every year they would get a few miles out of town and his mother would cry out, “Oh, dear, I think I left the iron on.” 

So they would turn around and go back and it never failed, the iron would be off and unplugged.  So one year they were on their way and sure enough, the mom says it.  “Oh dear, I think I left the iron on.”  He said his dad didn’t say a word.  He just pulled over, popped the trunk and handed his mom the iron.

David, the author of this psalm, would appreciate that because the word he uses for “remember” here means to show that you remember; to do something that proves you remember just like the father did in the story. And David tells us to remember 3 things; remember the wonders He has done and His miracles and His judgments.

 

So many people are thankful to God only when God does something for which they have asked or if He does something new. And it’s easy to be thankful to God when He provides a new car or a house and while we would never come right out and say it, we sometimes live our lives as if to say, “Yea, but what have you done for me lately?” When God is as merciful as He has been to us sometimes we need to be reminded of His mercy because we can take it for granted.

 

So, let’s look and be reminded of the first thing on David’s list, God’s wonders. He says to remember the wonders He has done. This word means a special display of divine power but does not necessarily include His miracles. We’ll talk about them next. That’s another word that David uses. The difference in wonders and miracles is that wonders are works of divine power that bring trouble to the enemy.

 

The plagues that came on Egypt when they held the children of Israel as prisoners and slaves would be considered wonders. There were 10 plagues that came on Egypt including the plague of water to blood, lice, frogs, boils and hail. And you remember the story. Finally Pharaoh had enough of these displays of divine power and let the people go.

 

See, it helps to think like the author was thinking. David was thinking of these kinds of wonders when he was worshiping and giving thanks. David was remembering how God had protected and provided in His own sovereign way which included allowing Israel to go through horrible times. And I hear you saying, “How can God be considered to be protecting and providing while Israel is in bondage in Egypt? How can it be called protection and provision when His special people are being treated horribly as slaves in a foreign country?”

 

Well, that’s a good question. And I make no claim to fully understand God’s ways or to have a grasp on His sovereignty but I can tell you that God allowed them to go through everything they went through as part of the process of making them to be the nation He wanted them to be.  And in His perfect timing, God performed those wonders of plagues and the enemies of Israel were effectively defeated.

 

Today we worship in this beautiful place and we have peace and joy as a church and we worship in spirit and in truth and we have fun and we focus on Jesus and His power and grace and on all that He has done for us. And it is obvious to anyone who will look that God has called us to this place where we can do all those things. But it hasn’t always been that way.

 

There was a time when this church was in Runaway Bay that those things might not have been said about us like they are today.  I know from experience that telling someone in the community that you were from First Baptist might upset them instead of attract them.  There were seasons of selfishness, pride, gossip and strife in our church and those seasons were keeping us from being who we were supposed to be.

The sin of complacency and lack of faith could very well have kept us from coming here and being who we are supposed to be and so God did some wonders amongst us and took away people, things and situations that were not in His good and perfect will and sometimes it hurt.

But when you look back and realize that those things were our enemies; those things were sin and God didn’t want that for our church and so He removed it in sometimes wondrous ways.  And now we can look back and see how God was working when we couldn’t see it then but now we are grateful to God as we remember those things.

And maybe you can see it in your own life how God sometimes takes things away and you don’t understand why at first but in hind sight you can see that God didn’t want that in your life and so He did something wondrous to remove it.  And as we sit here this morning we know that our enemy is not another country like it was for David.  Our enemy is not against flesh and blood but against sin and Satan himself.

So we are to remember God’s wonders even though it may sting for a while.  And we are also to remember God’s miracles.  And that sounds easy!  We love to think about God’s miracles.  That’s fun to do.  But I want to warn you that Satan, our enemy, doesn’t want you to remember those miracles.  He wants you to think about almost anything but those and so he will keep putting things in front of you to distract you from it.

The Bible is full of miracles that we should remember and one of the very biggest, most amazing miracles happened to the Israelites after Pharaoh let them go.  You know the story.  They left Egypt and, by the way, it says they plundered Egypt as they left, and the whole nation crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and the whole army of Egypt was drowned as they tried to cross.  Man, I wish I could have seen that!

There was no explaining that away as a natural phenomenon.  Everybody saw that it was a miracle of God and it says in Exodus 14 that after that all the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him.  And do you know how long that lasted?  About 10 minutes.  And then I think one guy looked at another and said, “Hey, I’m kinda hungry, are you?  I sure miss that fruit we used to get in Egypt .  That was good stuff.  And I’m tired of walking in this heat.  This sun is going to ruin my complexion.”

It says they complained because they were thirsty and God provided water from a rock.  They complained about being hungry so they got manna.  They wanted meat and God sent quail.  And when they had basically nothing else to complain about…they started worshiping some golden calf they built.

Instead of saying, “Hey, I don’t know where our next meal is going to come from but I have seen with my own eyes that God did a miracle to get us out of slavery and He has provided everything we have needed since and so I know that He will continue to provide everything we need and for that we are so thankful!”  Can you imagine what God could have done with a group of people who remembered?

That was, in fact, exactly why God allowed them to wander around for 40 years.  I heard somebody say the other day that from point A to point B, that trip should have taken them just a few weeks but because they did not remember God’s miracles in their lives, it took them 40 years.  And Satan laughed for all 40 of those years.

See, God wants to be remembered.  He told Moses in Exodus 3 to “tell the people that I AM sent you.  That is my name that I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”  And He deserves to be remembered for the miracles He has done from the Old Testament all the way through our lives here today.  And when we start to complain about what we have and don’t have you can be sure that Satan has distracted us from remembering.

And because we want to be a group of people who, instead of complaining like the Israelites who had to wander aimlessly, we want God to use us and work in us and through us.  Can you imagine what God could do with a group of people who remembered?

 

Can you imagine how we can effect Lake Bridgeport and all of Wise County and the world when we just say, “I don’t know how He is going to do it but I remember how God has provided for us in everything we have ever done and so I know He will continue to protect and to provide everything we need and that’s why we are grateful.  We remember His miracles and we are grateful.”

We remember God’s wonders.  We remember God’s miracles.  And we also remember God’s judgments.  You can skip just one verse and see in verse 7 that David says, “His judgments are in all the earth.”  So, why should we remember and be grateful for God’s judgments?

Speaking of remembering, I remember years ago when I lived in River Oaks, one of my dogs got out of the yard and got picked up by the dog catcher.  I found him at the pound and he was fine but I went to get him out and they said I had to pay some crazy huge fine.  I don’t remember how much it was but I had to pay so I did but I took it to court.

The little town of River Oaks doesn’t have much of a court system but I did what I had to do and the judge finally called my name and asked how I plead.  I tried to tell him that my dog had never gotten out before and the neighbor kid had gone in and left the gate open and I tried to assure him that it would never happen again.

I promise this is the truth.  The judge didn’t even let me finish.  And he said, “Well, since the only good dog is a dead dog, I find you guilty and order you to pay another fine.”  Can you believe that?  It’s true.  I wanted to tell him on my way out that my dog said that the only good judge is a dead judge but I bit my lip and got out of there.

The problem is that our judges today have too much ability to interpret the law however they want to and that may change depending on what mood they are in.  We have laws in place to protect us but there is no strict standard that covers every situation.  And so, life is not fair sometimes even in our judicial system.  How many times have you said that before?  “Life’s not fair.”

Maybe you have even told that to God before.  “God, that’s not fair!”  But the good thing is that God is a just judge.  And how He judges does not change according to His mood or what the weather is doing.  Malachi 3:6 says, "I the LORD do not change.”  Psalm 119:89 declares “God’s Word will never change, His nature will never change!” 

And so how many times have you watched the news and heard of a child like Alanna Gallagher in Saginaw has been brutally murdered or that man In Ohio, Ariel Castro, who was convicted of holding those women for all those years; you have seen horrible stuff like that and even when the person is caught you think, “That’s still no justice”.  And you’re right.  1000 years in jail doesn’t make up for what has been done.

But do you know what the root of all of that suffering is?  Do you know the real problem that is causing this world to fall apart at the seams?  It is the scheme of the devil.  That is his plan and his greatest desire.  He spends every second of every day planning and scheming on how he can make you and me fall into sin so that in the end he can kill us dead and he will not rest until that happens.  Remember, our battle is not against flesh and blood.

But there is good news.  The good news is that there will be justice one day.  The good news is that Satan’s days are numbered and one day as it says in Revelation 20:9-10, “But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. ¹⁰ And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

 

And that’s a good thing to know that we have a just God and we are grateful for that but I’ll tell you the truth.  When it comes to God and me, I don’t want justice.  I want mercy.  I don’t want what I deserve.  Because I know what I deserve and it has nothing to do with living a full life here on earth as it says in John 10:10.  And it has even less to do with being seated in the heavenlies next to Jesus as it says in Ephesians 2:6. 

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death and that is what I deserve.  But not only do I not get what I do deserve but I get what I don’t deserve and that is, because of what Jesus has done for me, eternal life and fellowship with God Himself.

This world is an awful place sometimes but we know that this life is only a wisp of smoke and then we are gone.  But as believers and followers of Jesus we are grateful for Who God is and for His wonders, His miracles and even His judgments because we remember.

 

After invitation:  The word David used for “remember” means to show that you remember or to prove it.  We do that in one way by keeping the Runaway Bay pebbles in the jar.  What do you need to do in your own life to prove that you remember what God has done for you?

 

“Gratitude Believes” –Psalm 105:4

I was a freshman in high school. Theresa Beauvais was a a little older. Theresa was pretty much the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my young life and I loved to just stare at her. Beautiful face, beautiful skin, long, dark hair. I had a couple of classes with her. Evidently she must have not been too smart if she was taking classes with freshmen, but whatever. I didn’t want to debate politics with her. I just wanted to look at her.

I knew her schedule and knew where to sit in the lunchroom so I could see her walk in every day and be able to see her eat lunch. I wasn’t stalking her, technically, but I did like to look at her. And that’s all I did was look. I didn’t dare talk to her or anything as crazy as that. She didn’t know I was alive…until one day.

I was sitting at the lunch table with some of my buddies and sure enough she walked in and evidently whatever I was thinking must have been muttered loud enough for some of them to hear. I remember clearly that Jody Waggoner was sitting across the table from me and he asked if I thought she was good-looking. I said, “Oh, yea.” So, he just calls her over. I’m muttering, “No, no, no, don’t you do it.” But he does it.

He motions for her to come closer and he just whispers something in her ear. I can’t hear what he says but she just looks at me and smiles and says, “I’m sorry. I have a date for prom already.” And then she walks off. True story. Horribly, horribly true. My therapist says I’m making real progress in getting over that embarrassment too, so that’s good.

I’m quite sure I am not the first young man to have a crush on a pretty face. And I’m quite sure I’m not the first to have that crush come back to bite him. You hear all the time about something crazy a guy does because of a woman. That pretty face can make a guy do things he wouldn’t normally do.

Isaac lied because Rebekah was so beautiful. Jacob worked for 14 years just to marry beautiful Rachel. And David…well, David had serious problems after a look at Bathsheba. So, David knew of what he wrote in Psalm 105:4 to seek God’s face. David knew that looking for, seeking after and finding God was not something that would come back to bite you. He knew the benefits of seeking God’s face. He knew and was thankful for what seeking God’s face would bring.

We continue our look at this psalm of gratitude and we have seen that true gratitude will be obvious in verse 1. From verse 3, we see that true gratitude will be bring joy. And today we see in verse 4 that in our gratitude to God we see His strength.

Let’s read that passage again. Our focus will be on verse 4 but we’ll read 1-5 of Psalm 105to keep it in context.

Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. ²Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. ³ Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. ⁴ Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. ⁵ Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.

“Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.” I’m telling ya. That David is gonna be a writer someday. He just has a way of putting things that is just beautiful. The problem is that my ear says that’s beautiful but my little mind says, “What?” I want to know what that means to seek His face and His strength. What does it look like to actually do that?

I hate to in a way but let’s go back to my crush on Theresa. Some of you know what that feels like. Maybe it’s been a long time for some of us but you remember when you had a crush on that person you wound up dating and then marrying. When I was in school we called it “going together”. You may never actually go anywhere with that person but you still called it that.

Some of you called it “going steady”. You old folks called it courting or sparking. “I got my cap set for her.” I think my parents just “met in the parlor”. Whatever you called it, you remember the feeling you got when you were around that person. It was a feeling that didn’t stop when you left that person. It changed you when you were with them and away from them. It affected how you felt, how you dressed, how you smelled. It affected your attitude and outlook on life. Things were just better in this world when you had them to think about and you were grateful that you had them in your life.

Do you know that, unlike Theresa Beauvais, God wants to have a relationship with me? He does. And He wants to have a relationship with you too. In Genesis, it says that we are created in His image. In 1 John, it says that He loved us first. And all through here it talks of how God will never leave us. And what happens when you have a relationship with someone? It changes everything about you.

Think about the relationship that Danielhad with God. You remember the story. Daniel knew God so well that when the king made a law that nobody could pray to anybody but him, the first thing that Daniel did was to go home and pray to God about that. He wasn’t looking for trouble or trying to prove a point in protest. He just did what he always did because he had a relationship with God.

Nehemiah heard that the walls of Jerusalem had been burned and the very first thing he did was to pray about it. He fasted and wept and it stayed on his mind even while he was working and finally the king asked him what was wrong and again Nehemiah prayed even before answering. It was just his habit. It was what he did and it came natural to him.

Of course, then there is Job. Job takes it to a whole ’nuther level. When his whole world crashed down around him in just a matter of minutes, the very first words out of his mouth included the phrase, “May the name of the Lord be praised.” Job lost everything and his first natural reaction was to worship. He sought the face of God and found God’s strength there.

All three of these men could testify to the truthfulness of David’s words to “Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always”. Daniel said in chapter 9 verse 18, “We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.”

Nehemiah got the wall rebuilt and said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength”. Job said in chapter 42, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” Did Job actually see God’s physical face? No, of course not, but He saw God in a new and real way; a way that brought gratitude to God for all that He had done, in spite of and through the horrible times in Job’s life. That’s how we seek God’s face. That’s what it looks like.

Now let’s see why we should seek God’s face. David says to “look to the Lord and His strength.” In terms of physical strength, Samson is the champion of the Bible. At the end of his life, though, even he knew from Whom his strength came and he prayed, “Oh God, please strengthen me just once more.”

But I think the grand champion of every other kind of strength had to be Paul. In Philippianshe said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” And when he says, “all things” that was a lot of stuff that God gave him the strength to do. He wrote most of the New Testament, he started churches all over the world, he healed, he brought peace, he preached the Gospel and in his spare time he made tents! All of that took a lot of strength.

And yet, for some reason, God never removed the thorn in Paul’s flesh, as he called it. And we don’t know what that thorn was and that is probably the #1 question he is asked when people get to Heaven. Paul probably walks around Heaven with a t-shirt that says, “It was my eyes” or “It was my back” or “It was this mesquite thorn” or whatever it was. But whatever it was God never gave him relief from it.

And I don’t know why God chose not to but I can tell you that the vast majority of time that God heals or gives strength to do anything, it is the strength a person needs to do service for God. God knew that whatever was troubling Paul, it did not keep him from doing what God called him to do.

In Psalm chapter 3, David says, “I lie down and sleep and wake again because the Lord sustains me.” And God sustained him and gave him strength because he was running from his son Absalom and God wanted David on the throne and not Absalom.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is done. He’s finished and he wants to die. He is tired, mentally and physically and spiritually. But God sends an angel to minister to him and give him strength, not so he could make it home to watch TV and enjoy his retirement or to be able to travel the countryside on a whirlwind public speaking tour. (Get it? Whirlwind? Elijah?)

God gave him strength so that Elijah could continue in service for the Lord. He gave him what he needed to continue doing what he was supposed to do. And maybe if God is not giving you the strength you think you need, it is because He has given you the strength He knows you need to do what He wants you to do.

Yes, we all know that God is merciful and will often give strength and healing to people just because of His great mercy, and we are to pray for that. There’s nothing wrong with praying for strength or healing based on that but maybe God wants you to do something and if He doesn’t give you Samson strength then maybe He is giving you Paul strength. Maybe He is giving you the exact amount of strength you need to do exactly what you are supposed to do right where you are.

I’ve given you a lot of biblical examples. Now let me give you an example that is from our church. We often pray for someone right here to have healing and strength and relief from pain. That could be any one of you, in fact. And I hesitate to single out just one because so many of you are in some sort of pain and yet do what God has asked you to do in spite of and through your pain.

And if I were God I would heal your pain. I would swoop down my omnipotent hand and erase your pain and increase your strength to where it used to be. But if I did that, who knows but what you would have so much strength that you might skip right past that lady’s house down the street where that lady needs you so badly.

I know that right now you have just enough strength to get to her house and back and no more. I know you show her friendship when she needs it and you pray for her when I would imagine there is nobody else on the planet praying for her. I know you take her Bible verses and you encourage her even when you need someone to encourage you and in spite of and through your pain.

And so maybe when David says to seek God’s face and His strength, sometimes God gives you your strength and sometimes He gives you His strength which is the perfect amount of strength to do what you are supposed to do in service for Him. And maybe that strength is Samson strength and maybe it is “just” Paul strength. But when you see God at work through you it makes you grateful. It makes you want to seek His face even more so He can work through you even more.

So, we have seen how we are to seek God’s face and we have seen why we are to seek God’s face. The obvious last one is when are we to seek His face? The answer is the last word of the verse – always. We are to look to the Lord and His strength when times are good and we just need to say “thank you” like we did a couple of Sunday nights ago.

See, Satan hates for you to feel grateful to God. He hates it because it means you know God a little better than you used to and he doesn’t want that. He hates for you to be grateful because he knows it means that your faith is a little stronger than it used to be and he sure can’t have that. Satan hates for you to be grateful because he knows it means that God is at work in your life in such a way that it is too obvious to ignore and that just means trouble for the prince of this world and the father of lies. So he doesn’t want you to seek God’s face in the good times so he tries to bring bad times.

But we have bad news for Satan and we have worse news for Satan. The bad news is that we will look for God in the good times and the worse news is that we will look for God in the bad times. Not only will we seek His face but we will gain His strength and that will allow us to even be thankful in the bad times.

We should seek God’s face and His strength when times are good or when they are bad. We should seek the Lord when we are at work or school or driving down the road. You know, somebody told me the other day that they feel guilty sometimes when they are playing Solitaire because as they are playing they ask God for help and they felt bad for wasting God’s time like that. But that is exactly what is meant by always seeking His face. That is exactly what is meant by praying without ceasing. You do that when you have a relationship with Him.

When you were dating your soon-to-be spouse, you wanted to be with them in the good times so they could enjoy it with you. You wanted to be with them in the bad times so you could have them to cry on and give you guidance. But you also just wanted to be with them when nothing was going on; just watching TV or driving down the road. You just wanted their company.

That person is not trying to cheat at Solitaire by asking God for help. It’s just a habit to ask God to be with you no matter what you are going through, good, bad or otherwise. We should seek His face always.

We have seen how and why and when we are to seek the face of the Lord but did you know that God seeks us first? 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” Luke 19:10 says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

That’s hard to take in sometimes. God sought you out. The One Who created you and knows you best still wants to have a relationship with you and all you have to do is accept Him. Proverbs 8:17 says, “Those who seek Me find Me.” If you don’t know Him today; if you don’t have a relationship with Him, then today is the day of salvation. Today is the day you can shed the guilt and gain all the good things Heaven has to offer. Don’t wait another day. Seek His face.

“The Joy of Gratitude” – Psalm 105:3

It’s midnight. The lights are off. A storm is blowing outside and the wind is howling like a faraway wolf. The piano music plays an eerie couple of notes over and over again slowly building in volume. You sit on your couch with the popcorn bowl on your lap and you holler at the teenage girl on the screen. “Don’t go down those stairs! Why would you go down to the cellar?! Your friends all just got their skin ripped off by a giant superhuman mutant zombie and all you have is a flashlight! Don’t go down there!”

You know the scene, right? Sometimes the zombie jumps out of the shadow as she opens the door. At other times, the director tries to make you relax and it’s just a cat that scampers off when she opens up the door to the cellar. So then the actress turns around in relief and says, “It was only that silly ca…”. And THEN the zombie jumps out and stabs her with a trident or something. I hate those shows. I don’t do scary movies. I would much rather watch something funny than scary.

But I wonder sometimes how often we go to God like that teenage actress opened the door to the cellar. We go to God in prayer not sure of how we will be received. We know He is loving but we also know that He is holy. We know He is near and that we were made in His image but we also know that He is so different from us and that we can never totally understand Him. He rightfully scares us but He also tells us to call Him “Abba”Father. We call God up and sometimes we’re not sure what we will find on the other line.

I find myself praying sometimes and trying to be real particular about how I pray. I sometimes pray like a politician answers a question. I’m very careful about what words I choose. “God, please give me patience BUT please don’t give me more trials. I just want patience for what I’m going through now. And Lord, please help me to be more generous. BUT I know what you did last time I prayed that. I lost all of my stuff. So, please just help me to be generous with what I have.”

Do you ever pray like that? You pray like you’re praying to a lawyer. You have to use exactly the right words and cover all your bases or God might answer your prayer in a way that is technically what you asked for but not really what you wanted. I, Todd Blair, the party of the first part would like to petition the Holy Deity, here foreword to be referenced as “God” or “Dear Lord” for blessings for said party but not at the expense of another party. And that such blessings would come at a date no later than 90 days from commencement of stated request and if blessings should as such be delayed then they will be prorated out according to a 30-day month multiplied by 12. If it so please the court…or God”

But that is not how the Bible tells us to come to God. In fact, in the book of Psalms, David, who knows a thing or two about praying, tells us that we should rejoice when we go to God. It’s true that prayer changes things. And it’s true that the fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. It is also true that God is sovereign and that He will answer our prayers in a way that is best for us, best for His Kingdom and will give Him the most glory. And no, I don’t know how He is able to do all of that at the same time but it has something to do with His being God.

Which, in itself, is reason enough for us to rejoice when we pray. Because if He is God, and we know He is, then He has proven Himself trustworthy. And if He has proven Himself trustworthy, and we know He has, then we should know that however He chooses to answer our prayer, be it yes, no or wait, that it will be good; that it will be best, that it will be exactly what we need. You’re not praying to a lawyer or a politician or a used car salesman who is trying to trick you into something. You are praying to Holy God Who loves you passionately. So rejoice!

Let’s look at the passage that tells us to rejoice when we pray. It is found in Psalm 105:3. Let’s read verses 1-5 to keep it in context.

Give thanks to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. ² Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.³ Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. ⁴ Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. ⁵ Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.

“Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.” You remember from last week that David wrote this as the special music, if you will, for a celebration they were having, much like what we had last Sunday night. And it is a song of great joy. And who doesn’t like a happy song?

I have to admit that I like some country music but not all of it. I never have been able to listen to all those songs about how his baby left him and now he’s just in the bar drinking. Who wants to listen to that? By the way, do you know what has 79 legs and 42 teeth? The front row at a country music concert. Oh dear, now some of you are offended because you like country music and the others are offended by the corny joke. Oh well.

David’s song would never have been played on the country stations because it is joyful and happy. He says to “glory in His holy name.” That word “glory” means to praise. It is actually related to the word that the Hebrews used for the Book of Psalms. They saw the whole book as a book of praises. David often started his psalms with thanksgiving and praise because he was grateful.

This is a psalm of thanksgiving, of gratefulness and joy. It starts out saying to “give thanks” or “give praise” and it is a thread that runs all through this psalm and I would dare say all of the psalms, especially David’s. And I realize that is a big claim because sometimes that thread of thankfulness gets pretty bare in some of David’s psalms. But I want you to see something.

I want you to see what David did and what we should do when we go to God in prayer.

1) David was thankful to God because of Who God is.

2) David was thankful to God because of who David was.

First we see that David was thankful to God because of Who God is. David says to glory in His holy name. We talked last week about God’s name being a manifestation of His character. Every name God has reflects Who He is and how He works and the better one knows God the more one is thankful to God. Why should I give praise to God’s holy name? I give Him praise because Genesis calls Him salvation. Psalm 23 calls Him a shepherd. Exodus calls Him the healer. Jeremiah says our righteousness. Judges says He is peace. Isaiah says everlasting. Genesis says He is the strong one! And I love John 14 that says He is the Comforter.

And we can all give God glory for all of those things. In fact, it’s pretty easy to praise God for being our healer and our righteous comforter. But what about passages like Acts 10:36 that say He is Lord of all? You say “amen! Lord of All!” But do you really mean it? Do you mean that you can give SOVEREIGN God praise; not only in the good times and for the good things He does for us, but also in the bad times? If He is Lord of all then He is Lord of ALL, the good and the bad times.

CS Lewis wrote in God in the Dock, “In Hamlet, a branch breaks and Ophelia is drowned. Did she die because the branch broke or because Shakespeare wanted her to die at that point in the play? Either – both – whichever you prefer. The alternative suggested by the question is not a real alternative at all – once you have grasped that Shakespeare is making the whole play.”

And once we have grasped that God is making this whole life of ours, then we can better see His true names. His holy names become precious to us even in our trials because we know that God has proven Himself faithful. Does it dry all of our tears and make the world rainbows and lollipops? Of course not but the better we know God the better we understand that we are not here to have rainbows and lollipops. Yes, God is generous and loving but the better we know God the more we are able to say, “Thank you Lord for what has come my way. I can’t wait to see how you turn it to my good and the good of your Kingdom.”

Because that is Who God is and how God works and so we as mature believers and followers of Him WILL be thankful to God for Who He is just like David did.

Look at Psalm 22. Turn in your Bibles there. I want you to see this. Just a quick glance tells you a lot about the man after God’s own heart. This is about the ultimate Psalm for being in despair. David knew despair. David was familiar with heartache and pain all of his life. Look at this. Just a quick glance. He starts out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me?” He continues…I cry out. I am a worm. Surrounded by bulls, roaring lions, dogs. My heart has turned to wax. Strength has dried up. I can count all my bones. Come quickly! Rescue me in verse 21.

But look in verse 22. I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you. Verse 23 says, “You who fear the Lord, praise him!” I want you to know that God had not yet saved David from all that was going on in his life. There was no halftime between verse 21 and verse 22 where God saved him. Verse 22 was IN THE MIDST OF the worst attack Satan could muster. How could David be thankful at a time like that? Because David knew Who God is. Not just a head knowledge but with his whole being, he knew. And that leads me to the next point.

David was thankful to God because of who David was. Back to Psalm 105 and the second part of verse 3. It says “let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.” In the thinking and culture of the time in which David lived, they considered the heart to be the center of one ’s self. They didn’t understand how the brain works like we do today and so they felt that the heart was the place from which came all thought and emotion. It was the place where you felt love and fear and also knew facts and believed things.

We should rejoice as we go to God in prayer with all that we are and all that we have and with everything about us. Aren’t you glad you don’t worship a god that loves you only when you are loveable? Aren’t you glad you don’t have to do something special to get His attention or be clean enough to come to Him?

In the devotional, Walk with God, the author, Chris Tiegreen says, “Our natural tendency, like Adam and Eve, is to hide from God. We don’t necessarily sit behind the bushes hoping He won’t discover us, but mentally we are not entirely open to Him. We dress up our prayers to sound right to Him. We dress up our deeds to appear worthy to Him. And we dress up our worship to appeal to His glory.”

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus tells the disciples how to pray. And it is the proper and good and appropriate way to come before Holy God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Jesus gives us the order in which to ask things of God. To me, it is sort of like coming to the throne room of God, knocking on the door and waiting to be allowed in. We then walk in and stand at an appropriate place and tell the King of kings why we love and appreciate Him. At the appropriate time and place we can ask Him for help and for forgiveness and for His blessings. And as a general rule that really is the best way to come before the King.

But there are times that we can just do like David did and bust open the door and run in and jump on His lap screaming, “Father, please help me. Can’t do it. Don’t know how to do it. Don’t want to do it. Don’t understand why I have to do it. Please help me I’m about to die!”

But even in those times; even when we may not be making any sense ourselves and God is not making any sense to us, still, as David is our model, still we can and should have joy. David says to rejoice and he should know. This isn’t coming from me. This isn’t coming from one who likes to think he has seen some pain. In fact, I want you to go through and really look at the Psalms sometime. Read the ones of David especially and make a note of the ones before and after God “crushes” him, to use his words.

Before what I like to call “Bathsheba-gate”, David cried for saving and he had good reason to. But after Nathan told him, “You are that man” and after his baby died and his family rebelled and his world collapsed; after all that you see David differently because he saw God differently. His psalms were less about saving and more about praising, even when it must have been almost impossible to praise.

Do you really want to know God? Do you really want to enjoy God? Do you really want to live an abundant life like is promised in John 10:10? To do those things REQUIRES praise.

Most of you know I don’t really enjoy most sports. I don’t watch football or baseball or basketball on TV ever. But I do enjoy going to watch the Bulls play on Friday evenings in the fall. I have some good friends that always save me a seat right in the front and center and they are serious about their Bull football. I went the first time just to be with them but I want you to know that I started getting into it. It’s hard not to watch a really good play and not get excited when you see it in person and up close. I realized I was a Bulls fan about 3 games into the first season because I found myself giving praise, loudly, to the players when they did well.

And as I did that, I realized I was learning their names and remembering a few stats and really starting to enjoy them instead of just going through the motions. It’s one thing to put a Bull decal on your car and wear a maroon t-shirt. It’s another to holler as loud as you can, “Good job, Gabe! Nice run buddy!”

It’s the same with God. Praising God is not only the right thing to do, it also is how we learn more about Him and then really enjoy Him, when we do it with all of our hearts and when we do it even in the bad times, like David did. So praise His holy name because of Who God is and praise Him with all of your heart because of who you are.

“An Act of Gratitude” –Psalm 105:1

With Independence Day just behind us a couple of days, I thought it would be interesting to look back just a little bit further to the spring of 1621. On April 5^thof that year the little band of pilgrims watched as the Mayflower sailed away back to its home in England . Even though the group had lost about half of its original members, not a person that had survived chose to return on that ship. They were dedicated to staying in the New World .

Those 50 or so men, women and children had come to the New World for freedom; specifically freedom of religion and they paid a huge price for that freedom. They had suffered incredible hardships to gain that freedom but they understood the fact that whatever security is lost that an equal amount of freedom is gained. It works both ways, by the way. Gaining security will always cost an equal amount of liberty and freedom.

But the little group paid the price and made it through a most difficult winter and summer but the fall brought a great harvest. So they got on the phone and called a few of their closest Indian friends and said, "Hey, we're having a party over here by Plymouth Rock. Y'all ought to come." And so began what we now call the holiday of "Thanksgiving".

They had endured starvation, frost, Indian attacks, disease and wild animals and had lost many friends and family members over the past year but they had gotten to the point where they could see through the difficulty and see that God was at work in their midst. And what did they do? They had a celebration to just say, "Thank you, Lord."

It didn't mean that they were through with their difficulties at all. And they knew that. It just meant that they could see and appreciate God's hand of mercy on their lives even in the middle of the difficulty. And what they did was biblical and right. And I find it hard to believe that it was a coincidence that this little group of folks had a feast of thanksgiving. They did it because they wanted to but they also knew that it was biblical. These were godly men who were educated by and through the Bible and they knew what the Bible said about the importance of giving thanks.

It was because men like William Bradford and William Brewster had read what King David wrote in our text this morning in the book of Psalms that they decided to take time out of their busy lives to just give thanks and honor to the One who provided everything they needed. And some of those people didn't survive that harsh winter. We often repeat around here our version of what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said to the king who was about to throw them in the furnace.

We say, "I know God can and I know God will, but even if He doesn't, still we will serve Him." And we like to remember how God did save them from the fiery furnace and brought them out without even the smell of smoke. But there were some in that little group of pilgrims that I am sure said the same thing...and some didn't survive that harsh winter. God could have...but He didn't.

And yet, the remaining few saw that God had provided an ample harvest and had helped them to survive and even though they had lost loved ones, they still followed what David said and gave thanks. Let's read the passage in Psalm 105:1-7. This is one of many Psalms of thanksgiving. You may have noticed that I often start our services with a reading from the book of Psalms and it's easy to find one that talks about praising God.

The occasion for this particular Psalm is the bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and to the place that David had prepared for it. The Ark represented God's favor and His presence and so, you might remember, David wanted to build someplace special for it. When David got that done, he called everyone together and they had a special time of celebration and thanksgiving. And this was the special song that David wrote and gave to Asaph, the song leader. You can find most of this Psalm and the story in 1 Chronicles chapter 16 but this morning I want to read it from Psalm 105:1-7.

Give thanks to the Lord call on his name make known among the nations what he has done. 2 Sing to him sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts 3 Glory in his holy name let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. 4 Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. 5 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced 6 O descendants of Abraham his servant O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. 7 He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth.

This is the first of 4 sermons on gratitude that come from Psalm 105. Today we will look specifically at just verse 1. Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. David had fought lots of battles. He had won most of them but not all. He had lost family members and friends and many of his fighting men. He had seen the best that God could give and he had seen men at their worst. And while David knew his days were numbered, he also knew that this was just the beginning for the nation of Israel . And so he set aside a time just to say, "Thank you Lord."

And as they usually did with most similar Psalms, they celebrated with singing and feasting and music and even dancing, all to celebrate what God had done in their lives. And that sounds like our reason for getting together tonight. We are going to do most of those things just for that same reason. There may not be any dancing but I tell you what. When I think about what God has done and is going to do in this church, it makes me want to dance a jig. You'll have to be here tonight to see if I do that.

But in verse 1 of this passage, David tells us to do 3 things. He tells us to give thanks, call on His name and then tell others. Now, when David tells us to give thanks, we all know what that means, right? Sure we do. But I like to look up words to see what they originally meant so I can know exactly how the author was intending it so I broke out the big gun, my copy of Strong’s Expanded Concordance of the Bible. And I honestly didn’t expect to learn too much about the phrase“give thanks”. But I was surprised.

The original word in the Hebrew is “yadah” – (yawdaw) and, yes, it means to give thanks or praise. But the root word means to use the hand to throw something. That surprised me and fascinates me. It may not fascinate you so we will explore this quickly. When you are truly grateful for something it is not a passive, contemplative and meditative time. You want to do something.

When heroes come back from the war, you throw ticker-tape. When somebody does a great job onstage, one might throw roses. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem , they threw down palm branches. The way the word is used here does not necessarily mean that we are to throw things as we worship. In fact, please don’t! It means it is an active process. Because God has provided, don’t just sit there and have the thought go through your mind that you are grateful.

God didn’t just hold the door open for you or pass the salt at the dinner table for you to say, “Oh, hey, thanks dude.” When you reflect on what God has done and how He has continued to provide, it should make you want to do something, give something, say something, or participate in some tangible way.

Strong’s also says that the context of this word is usually in a public worship and that it is often done in conjunction with a confession of sin; not specific sins necessarily but the overall confession that we are sinners. And when praise is combined with confession in that way; when we confess that we are sinners and yet have received undeserved kindness from God, it throws man’s unworthiness in sharp contrast.

My Dad told me about taking a preaching class in the seminary with my Uncle Bill. He said ever so often they would have to preach in front of the class in the chapel and on this particular day it was my uncle’s turn to preach. Pop said they were scattered around here and there in the chapel and there was one black guy in this class and he happened to sit on the front row.

If you have ever heard my uncle preach you know that he can really start preaching pretty quick and on this day he was really preaching. And the guy on the front row had evidently been raised in the kind of church that every white preacher wished he had because the louder and more intense my uncle got the louder and more intense this young man got sitting on the front row. Pretty soon they seemed to be feeding off of each other and Uncle Bill is really bringing the freight while this man was standing and swaying and saying “amen” and “preach it”. He was really getting into the message and didn’t realize he was the only one standing and making any noise until he turned around and saw 30 white guys behind him sitting quietly.

You can imagine it embarrassed the guy to death and he sat down. But it’s a shame because he was doing part of just what David is telling us to do when he says to “give thanks”. This man was excited and was grateful to God and couldn’t help showing it. And we should be more that way. I’m not saying you should all stand and shout and carry on if that’s not how you worship. I mean, truly giving thanks is more than just a thought wafting across some brain cells ever so often. Truly giving thanks will manifest itself when we DO something to show our gratefulness.

So, David tells us to give thanks to the Lord and then he says to call on his name. I wanted to know what “call on His name”meant so I went back to Strong’s Concordance and it originally meant to poke yourself in the eye. No, I’m kidding. I just had to throw that in there because I thought the first one was so strange. J

To call on God’s name means to be in prayer and when you have those 2 things, praise and prayer, you have God’s attention. In fact, if you want God’s attention it is imperative that you have praise and prayer. But when you pray, do you really think to Whom you are praying? It says to call, to pray, on His name. What is God’s name?

Little kids often time, and for good reason, think that Jesus’ last name is Christ but we know that is really a title. Similarly, the name “God”is a title. His name is a manifestation of His character and His qualities. If He is “God” then that means He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. When Moses asked God who should he say sent him, God replied, “Tell them I AM sent you.” “I AM” is not God’s name like we have names. “I AM” describes God and that is how we are to call on His name, by understanding to our best ability God’s character and qualities. When we start our prayer off with “Dear God” or “Dear Lord”, we are addressing the great I AM. We are coming into the presence of the One who says, “I AM” the Way, the Truth and the Life”. I AM the Bread of life, the Light of the world, the Gate, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life. I AM the Vine. That’s Who we are calling on when we call on His name and when we see ourselves as we truly are and then come to Him as the great I AM, there will be praise. There will be true prayer. There will be true repentance and turning from our sin. When we see ourselves as we truly are and God as He truly is then we will give thanks to the Lord and we will call on His name.

Lastly, David tells us to “make known among the nations what He has done”.

Isaiah 12:3-4 says, “Therefore with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation. 4And in that day shall you say, Praise the LORD, call on his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted.” Can I read that first part again? “with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation”.

My dear family, do you have that joy, that deep well of salvation? I hope so. It’s there for you. But sometimes we struggle with that and it is our own fault. We struggle with just living in this nasty old world. There are things to do and bills to pay and temptation to distract us and we can forget, #1, that we can have joy and peace in the dark times, but #2, that there are people all around us that have no hope of lasting peace or joy. They have no hope of salvation. They have no hope of protection. They don’t have the Bread, the Vine or the Truth and they have to struggle through this world doing the best they can do.

Some people struggle to see anything for which to be grateful and it’s not always because they aren’t looking. There are people within walking distance, shoot, rock-throwing distance of this church that are struggling mentally, physically and socially, not to mention spiritually. They have a hard time seeing the purpose in life when the only thing they see around them is heartache and difficulty. And while God sometimes allows us to go through all the same things they go through, we have a hope and a future. God has a plan for our lives and we can live abundant lives here on earth but we have all the joys of Heaven waiting for us afterward.

How much do you have to hate your neighbor not to tell them the Good News of Jesus? The great 19th Century evangelist William Chalmers Burns declared, "The sound of feet on the pathway to Hell is breaking my heart." And doesn’t Jesus deserve it? Shouldn’t the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering?

I want you to tell me in just one or two words what you are thankful for. Are you thankful for your church, your health, your car? Speak up and give thanks!

I have a hard time believing that you live a life of thankfulness if you never give thanks in a tangible way and your prayer life is just a list of wishes and wants and you never make known what he has done. That’s what David is saying here in this Psalm. True thankfulness will be obvious.