Preached Thanksgiving Sunday, November 21, 2010
from
Psalm 116:12-14
Theme: In Psalm 116, the psalmist exemplifies for us how to offer ‘the sacrifice of thanksgiving’ to God in a way that pleases Him.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
This morning, I aspire to something pretty big in my sermon. I hope, by God’s grace, to set our hearts and minds in a right direction for Thanksgiving—not only for our feast today, and not only for our big celebration later this week, but always and for the rest of our days.
And to do that, I ask that you join with me in turning to Psalm 116. Tucked away in the middle of this psalm is an example of how to give thanks to God in a way that’s truly pleasing to Him. I hope that, as a result of our time together today, you’ll even go so far as to take what you learn from this psalm home with you, think deeply about it for the rest of the week, and even read this psalm aloud with your family and friends as you sit together for your Thanksgiving meal.
* * * * * * * * * *
A “psalm” is essentially an ancient song, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and sung in praise of the God of Israel. We, of course, don’t know the tune of the song; but we’re certainly blessed to have the words—given and preserved for us by God Himself.
Now; the human writer of this particular song—Psalm 116—is not known to us with any certainty. But whoever it was that God used to write it certainly bared his heart in it; because it’s a very personal psalm. The writer mentions his own experience with God in very intimate ways. And though we don’t know what the experience was that motivated him to write it, we can tell it was a very serious trial—one that God mercifully and faithfully brought him through. And I think we can say that the theme of this psalm is summed up for us very well in his response in verse 17; where he says to God, “I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving . . .”
What a great way to think of the act of “giving thanks” to God! It’s an offering we make to Him—like the offering of a sacrifice. Let’s walk our way through this rather brief psalm slowly and thoughtfully. Let’s consider what we can learn from the circumstances that the writer was in, and how God rescued him from them. And as we do, we’ll be better able to appreciate the “offering of thanks” that he made to God—and how you and I can follow his example in offering our thanks to God in a way that’s pleasing to Him.
* * * * * * * * * *
This psalm has structure to it. It begins, in verses 1-2, with a declaration from the psalmist of his response to God’s goodness to him. He writes;
I love the LORD, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live (Psalm 116:1-2).
Isn’t that a wonderful way to begin his praise? “I love the Lord!” That would be a wonderful declaration for us to make to our family and friends this Thanksgiving. It would be a great way to declare to others what we’re all about in life!
The psalmist’s love for the Lord doesn’t come about in the same way as God’s love for the psalmist—or for you and me. In God’s case, there’s nothing about us that would make us worthy of God’s love. In fact, as the Bible tells us, God loved us while we were in rebellion against Him (Romans 5:8), and while we were still dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:4). His love for us is never in response to anything we could do for Him. But our love for God is always in response for what He graciously does for us. As the apostle John wrote, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
The psalmist makes it very clear that he loves the Lord because the Lord first loved Him and acted mercifully toward him. In the original language, the psalmist emphasizes this to us; because he literally speaks this way: “I love, because He has heard, the LORD, my voice and my supplications” (v. 1; emphasis added). And look at how intense this love is. He says, “Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live” (v. 2). It’s as if he is saying that, because—in his time of great need—he called out to God and God heard him, he will now call out to God from then on! If I may put it this way without being too irreverent, he commits himself to being God’s ‘repeat customer’ for life!
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; we’re not told specifically what the crisis was that God rescued him from. And I have to say that I’m glad we’re not. If we were told the specific details, we might have felt that we can only cry out to God if we were in those same circumstance. But because it’s not told to us, we can feel free to cry out to God in any need!
But in verses 3-11, the psalmist does tell us some things about God’s deliverance. In verses 3-4, he says;
The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then I called upon the name of the LORD:
“O LORD, I implore You, deliver my soul!” (vv. 3-4).
“Pains” in the original language means “snares” or “cords”; and these are the “cords of death”. And “pangs” means “anguishes” or “distresses”; and these are the anguishes and distresses of “Sheol”—that is, the place of the death or (as it is in the old King James Version) “hell”. They surrounded him! They had grabbed him and laid hold on him! Whatever the circumstances were, his situation was clearly dire! “I found trouble and sorrow”, he said; and apparently, he didn’t have to look very hard to find them!
I wonder—have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like the pains of death and the pangs of Sheol were surrounding you; and that everywhere else on earth that you turn, all you find is trouble and sorrow? Perhaps you feel that way today. But then, look at what the psalmist does in verse 4: “Then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I implore You, deliver my soul!” He cried out to God in a very simple prayer that matched the seriousness of his situation. His prayer here reminds me of one of my favorite prayers in all Scripture— the prayer that Peter uttered when he walked on the water with Jesus and began sinking. He cried out, simply, “Lord, save me!” (Matthew 14:30). It’s not very poetic; but it does get right to the point, doesn’t it? I believe that the psalmist’s simple prayer in verse four is enough to save the soul of anyone who sincerely prays it. It’s the proper response, in fact, to God’s grace shown to us in the message of the gospel—”O Lord, I implore you, deliver my soul!”
That simple cry out to God wasn’t philosophically profound. It was “simple-hearted”. It was the cry of a distressed soul who knew only enough to say one thing—”I’m in trouble, Lord; save me!” And look at how God proved Himself to the the psalmist in answering it:
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
Yes, our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you (vv. 5-7).
These words sound a lot like what God once said of Himself to Moses; “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). The psalmist certainly found that God proved true to the description of Himself that He had given long ago to Moses. The psalmist was even able to say that he didn’t have to cry out in panic anymore—”Return to your rest, O my soul . . .” The crisis was over! God had rescued him! You and I can safely cry out to such a God as our God—gracious, righteous, merciful, and who preserves the simple.
Look at how the psalmist goes on to declare God’s goodness back to Him in verse 8. He says, “For You have delivered my soul from death” (that is to say, God completely saved him from his dire circumstances; and perhaps even saved his soul from eternal loss); “my eyes from tears” (that is, from the pain and sorrow of his circumstances), “and my feet from falling” (that is, from making a misstep and falling into trouble again). Truly, God saved his life; because he affirms, in verse 9, “I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.” He was a new man with a bright future. That’s a pretty wonderful turn of events for someone who was—only shortly before—surrounded by the pains of death and the pangs of Sheol! Only God could do that!
I love verses 10-11; where the psalmist—from the standpoint of God’s faithful deliverance—looks back and says;
I believed, therefore I spoke,
“I am greatly afflicted.”
I said in my haste,
“All men are liars” (vv. 10-11).
In the original language, the phrase “I believed” can also be translated, “I kept my faith”; so that he would be saying that he kept His faith in God—even when he was greatly afflicted. So many people today, sadly, abandon their faith in God in the midst of the trials. They say, “If there’s a God, then He should keep me from affliction! If this is the way He treats me, then I want nothing to do with Him!” But the psalmist didn’t do that. He continued to believe on God in the midst of his trial. Even when he cried out to God and said, “I am greatly afflicted”, he still believed “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple” (v. 5).
That’s not to say, of course, that everything that the psalmist said in his time of trial was right. Verse 11 tells us that he admits, “I said in my haste, ‘All men are liars'”. There’s a story from the Bible college I went to that relates to this verse. There were study areas in the school library that were separated only by a set of dividers. One day, a group of young men was studying in an area next to a group of young women. They were apparently not too devoted to their studies, however. The guys threw a waded up piece of paper over the divider; and the girls opened it up and it contained the words Daniel 1:4; “. . . young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand . . .” A few minutes later, another waded-up piece of paper flew into the guys’ section with the words of verse 11 on it—”I said in my haste, ‘All men are liars'”.
Those young women were putting those young men in their place. But of course, when the psalmist wrote those words, he wasn’t trying to put anyone else in their place. He was putting himself in place! He was admitting what we all seem to learn in the light of God’s faithfulness—that God once again proves Himself; and that in the midst of the crisis, we often panic and say things we later wished we’d never said.
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; all this brings us to the heart of what I believe the Lord wants us to take away from this psalm. How did the psalmist offer his thanks to God for all this? And more to the point, how do you and I offer our thanks to God—today, this Thanksgiving, and always—in a way that truly pleases Him?
The psalmist goes on to say;
What shall I render to the LORD
For all His benefits toward me?
I will take up the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
Now in the presence of all His people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of His saints.
O LORD, truly I am Your servant;
I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant;
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
And will call upon the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
Now in the presence of all His people,
In the courts of the LORD’s house,
In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD! (vv. 12-19).
In this closing section, you can see the psalmist’s gratitude to God for His grace toward him. “Precious in the sight of the LORD,” he affirms, “is the death of His saints” (v. 15); and while many people quote this as an affirmation of the blessedness of the saints in their death (which, of course, is truly blessed), I tend to think instead that it’s an affirmation of how God values their lives. As it says in Psalm 72:14, God “will redeem their life from oppression and violence; and precious shall be their blood in His sight.” God values and protects the life of His people; and the psalmist affirms, in gratitude, that he is precious to God.
And look at how the psalmist, in gratitude, yields himself completely to the Lord; saying, “O LORD, truly I am Your servant . . .” (v. 16). He even says it twice!—”I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant.” To declare that he is the son of the Lord’s maidservant was his way of devoting himself to the Lord as His own property—His “home-born slave”, as it were. He even closes it all with “Praise the LORD!”—or, as it is in the Hebrew, “Hallelujah.”
But I suggest that his greatest expression of thanks is found in verses 12-14. “What shall I render to the LORD, for all His benefits toward me?” he asks? How can we show an appropriate “thank You” to God for all His grace toward us? What kind of appropriate “thanks” does the Lord look for from us? You can sum up a proper “thanks” to God’s goodness to us in three ways.
First, we thank Him by . . .
1. TAKING THAT WHICH HE GIVES US (v. 13a).
The psalmist asks, “What shall I render to the LORD, for all His benefits toward me?” (v. 12); and he answers, ” I will take up the cup of salvation . . .” (v. 13a).
In the Old Testament, a “cup” was a figure for that which God wants to give to someone. It can be a negative thing. For example, in Psalm 75:8, it used as a figure for judgment on the wicked; where it says, “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is fully mixed, and He pours it out; surely its dregs shall the wicked of the earth drain and drink down”. Jesus used it as a figure of suffering in John 18:11; where one of His disciples tried to rescue Him from those who sought to arrest Him, and He said, “”Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” But in this morning’s psalm, the psalmist uses the “cup” for a figure of the blessings that the Lord wants to give us. As it says in Psalm 16:5, “O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup . . .”; or as it says in Psalm 23:5, “You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.”
And I suggest that the simple and wonderful thing that these words teach us is that the best way to say “Thank You” to God for the rich blessings He wishes to bestow on us is to simply take them up! “I will take up the cup of salvation . . .!” As he says in verses 5-7; “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you (vv. 5-7)
Surely, we should willingly receive all the great blessings that the Lord is eager to give us. But as the psalmist’s words affirm to us, the greatest blessing we should receive of all from God—that blessing which cost Him the most to give to us—is our salvation through His Son Jesus Christ. What a horrible insult it would be to Him if—after He so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son for us—we reject His offer to wash us clean of our sins and to make us holy in His sight by grace, and declare that we don’t want it and don’t need it. That would be the height of ingratitude!
By contrast, the greatest way to thank Him for His gift of grace is to “take up the cup of salvation” and place our trust in His Son’s sacrifice on the cross! And as the Bible says, “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). Truly, taking-up what He gives us the best thing we could do to ‘render-back’ to the Lord for His goodness to us. I hope you have done so.
* * * * * * * * * *
A second way that the psalmist mentions that we should say “Thank You” to God may at first surprise you; but it’s truly an acceptable expression of thanks to Him. We show Him thanks for rescuing us from our troubles by . . .
2. CALLING ON HIM IN TIMES OF TROUBLE (v. 13b).
“What shall I render to the LORD, for all His benefits toward me?” the psalmist asks? And he answers that he will “call upon the name of the LORD” (v. 13b).
It was interesting to me to notice how much the psalmist calls on the name of the Lord in this psalm alone! The most sacred name of God in Hebrew—”YHWY”—is translated in our Bible’s as “LORD”, in all capital letters. And if you look through this short psalm of 19 verses, you’ll find the psalmist calls God by that name 15 times. And if you include the closing statement, “Praise the LORD”—which, in Hebrew, is the word for praise (“Hallelu”) joined with the shortened version of this name for God (“Ya”)—you have it sixteen times!
But more important than the number of times the name appears is the practice itself of calling upon God in times of trouble. The psalmist told us of how he did this in verses 1-4; “I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live. The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the LORD: ‘O LORD, I implore You, deliver my soul!’” He says the same thing in verse 17; “I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.”
Does it surprise you that this is an acceptable way to say thanks to God for His goodness to us—to turn around and cry out for more? But this truly does say “Thank You” to Him! It acknowledges Him as the real source of all our good; and it acknowledges our absolute dependence upon Him for everything. God Himself invites us to call out on Him! In Psalm 50:15, He says, “Call upon He in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” What a great offer!—He’ll do His part (which is to deliver us from our troubles) if we will do our part (which is to call upon Him in our troubles, and glorify Him for His deliverance).
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; we need to note the order of things carefully. We don’t have a right to “call upon the name of the LORD” in our times of trouble until we have first taken up “the cup of salvation”. The first prayer that God wants to hear from us is the one in which we say “yes” to His offer of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ. And then, once we’ve been washed clean of our sins by the blood of His Son, we have the right to call upon Him in our troubles. Then, He will deliver us; and then, we will glorify Him.
And the invitation to do our part—that is, to glorify Him—leads us to a final way this psalm teaches us to render an acceptable thanks to God; and that is by . . .
3. DECLARING HIS FAITHFULNESS BEFORE OTHERS (v. 14).
“What shall I render to the LORD, for all His benefits toward me?” the psalmist asks. And again, he answers; “I will pay my vows to the LORD now in the presence of all His people” (v. 14).
The vows being spoken of here are, most likely, the vows someone would make to the Lord in the midst of a time of trial or testing—most likely in the form of a promise to make an offering or a sacrifice in the temple. And implicit in the idea of paying his vow “in the presence of all His people” is the fact that God truly rescued the psalmist—and that he was now alive in the presence of God’s people to pay what he vowed. Such an act would truly acknowledge God’s faithfulness in that (1) the psalmist would have recognized that God had done His part; and (2) that the psalmist was now gladly obligated to do his part in return to the glory of the Lord.
There’s certainly a lesson in this in terms of our relations toward God and other people. It honors the Lord when we keep our promises—both the ones that we make to Him in times of trouble, and the ones we make to each other in everyday life. But I believe the lesson we’re most meant to learn from it is that we truly say an acceptable “thank You” to God when we acknowledge His faithfulness “publicly”. The psalmist says, in verses 18-19; “I will pay my vows to the LORD now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the LORD’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.” He wouldn’t allow himself to declare God’s faithfulness quietly, or privately, or timidly; because that doesn’t declare thanks to God in a way that is worthy of Him. Rather, the psalmist made it his intention to declare God’s faithfulness openly, in an outwardly expressive way, before the eyes and ears of all.
It honors God—and truly thanks Him—when we overcome the fear of man, and declare His faithfulness publicly. As Jonah himself prayed in the belly of the great fish, “Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed.”—and then topped it off with the declaration: “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:8-9).
* * * * * * * * * *
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; as we come to our Thanksgiving celebration this week, please take this wonderful “thanksgiving” psalm with you. I would encourage you to spend time in it on your own, and let your thankfulness toward God be shaped by it. And I would also encourage you, in your family gatherings—perhaps before you eat—to take the time to read it aloud together as a praise to God.
But even more, I hope you will grow to learn from it how to render thanks to God in an acceptable way—and as a permanent habit of life.
What shall I render to the LORD
For all His benefits toward me?
I will take up the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
Now in the presence of all His people.