Kingstree Sermons

Psalm 50 | Pastor Christopher Powers

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Christopher:

We can give thanks in all things because we know you're with me in this. You are bearing this, and you bore this, and this leads to you. This leads to you. So I can give thanks. I can just I can just die into thanks.

Christopher:

Lord, what else can I do? I mean, in the last estimation, what can the human soul do but worship?

Caleb:

The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Christopher:

Well, this morning, I spent the week working on the next sermon in first John, and then yesterday and today, my voice has been increasingly spiraling down, and I was wondering, not to say that I'm long winded necessarily, but sometimes my sermons can be kind of lengthy, and I was wondering, is it the best idea to do that? And then I also, I wasn't sure if anyone was gonna be here today. You've all proven me wrong, so that's wonderful, but I wasn't sure if people were going to, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and with all the snow, brave it out here, and you did, so praise God for that. But what I did after praying this morning was put together a shorter message drawn from one of my journal entries. So I don't know if you journal.

Christopher:

When I'm reading the Bible in the mornings, I'm journaling. It's helping me think things through. So I put together an entry from one of my recent journal entries in the hopes that this would be more fitting for my particular capacities this morning. So we'll see. Apparently this is what's happening, so maybe the Lord has in this something for you, and then Lord willing, we'll return to one John next week, but if you want, turn with me to Psalm 50.

Christopher:

So I'm reading through the Psalms right now in part of my own personal reading, and I always love to come to the Psalms. It is a, you know, it's a, I don't know if comforting's the right word, but it is a peace giving book of scripture, because the whole panoply of our experiences are there. There's the heights of joy. There's the depths of sorrow. There's the plodding monotony.

Christopher:

The Psalms are It's not for nothing that the Psalms are called the songbook of the church. So Psalm 50 is where I found myself. This was earlier last Earlier this week, I believe, that I was reading through this psalm, and when I was thinking this morning, boy, do I have anything in my journal that I could turn into a sermon? This one was recent, and it also is about thanksgiving. So that was not planned, but it fits.

Christopher:

It's fitting because this psalm takes us into the concept of thanksgiving. So I'll just read. The whole point is to save my voice, but I'm gonna end up reading the whole psalm. So let me do that, and then I'll pray for us. This is Psalm 50.

Christopher:

A Psalm of Asaph. The mighty one, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes. He does not keep silence.

Christopher:

Before him is a devouring fire. Around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people. Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice. The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge.

Christopher:

Hear, oh my people, and I will speak. O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you. Your burnt offerings are continually before me.

Christopher:

I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your fold, for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the most high, and call upon me in the day of trouble.

Christopher:

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. But to the wicked, God says, what right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you're pleased with him, and if you keep company, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.

Christopher:

You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I have been silent. You thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

Christopher:

Mark this then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver. The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me. To one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God. Okay. Let's pray, and we'll look at a few things in this passage together.

Christopher:

Father, we confess that everything is yours. All the cattle, all the birds, all the trees, every molecule of air and light, all things belong to you. And so there's nothing we can give to you to earn anything from you. You, Lord, are the God from whom all is received. And so I pray this morning that you would work in my soul, and in the souls of your people according to your will.

Christopher:

That you would form in us obedience to this psalm, obedience to this sacrifice of thanksgiving. And Lord, that in doing so, we would treasure more deeply, taste more fully, rejoice in more completely all that you are for us in Jesus Christ, who is crucified and raised up again. We pray these things, father, in his name. Amen. Well, I will admit that for me, Thanksgiving is not natural.

Christopher:

Giving thanks is not something I naturally do. I can be I can take things for granted from other people and also from God. Just take for granted health, take for granted cars, take for granted a home, many, many things. And I I know there are people in this congregation who are not like that, who give thanks, who are just thanks givers, and I admire that, and I wanna grow into that. But for me, Thanksgiving is not my natural response.

Christopher:

So when I came to this passage earlier this week in my own reading, I was thinking about that statement, Thanksgiving. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. One thing that comes to mind here is that thanksgiving, the fact that he compares, that the psalmist here compares offering burnt sacrifices to thanksgiving says something to us. He says, do I eat the flesh of bulls, verse 13, or drink the blood of goats? Like, do I need your sacrifices, is what God's saying?

Christopher:

Rather offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. So what's being contrasted here is the external act of offering, and the internal reality of thanksgiving. And this suggests that thanksgiving is something more than just the external, more than just saying thank you, more than just the outside thing. There's something inside that makes it real or not. So the outside matters.

Christopher:

We talked about this a few weeks ago. Matter matters, but the outside becomes a shell if there's no core, because there's nothing inside. We've all seen this when a parent says, tell your sister or tell your grandma thank you, and the kid says, thank you. Thanks. Well, thanks.

Christopher:

Like, okay, the words are there. The sacrifice is there. The offering is there, but there's nothing in it. There's nothing in it. So thanksgiving is to be what it is, there's an internal reality.

Christopher:

God here, when he says offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, Yahweh is penetrating beneath the surface, and he always does that. All through scripture, the Lord is concerned about the heart. What's going on inside? What's the situation in the person? And again, this doesn't disqualify, or this doesn't make the external meaningless as if it doesn't matter what I'm doing outside.

Christopher:

That matters too. But that becomes empty if there's no inside. The Lord is after the heart. He's seeking the heart. He's seeking your heart.

Christopher:

He's seeking my heart. He's not seeking our actions merely. So thanksgiving is not merely an external act. It's an internal disposition. We get that because he's contrasting the external sacrifice and the act of thanksgiving.

Christopher:

Okay. What is that disposition? What is the internal disposition that makes something thanksgiving? I think at least part of it is a recognition of my inability and another's sufficiency. If I say thank you, at least what I'm doing, if I'm being sincere, is saying that was something you gave to me.

Christopher:

I didn't do that. You did that for me. So in saying thank you, I'm inherently saying, I couldn't, or at least in this situation, I didn't, and you did. So there's something I didn't do. There's something I didn't do for myself, and you did it for me.

Christopher:

That's that's part of thanksgiving. That's part of acknowledging thankfulness, which means there's a kind of death to self inherent in saying thank you. Because in saying thank you, I'm always saying to some degree, this was not from me. This was not of me. This was nothing I could do.

Christopher:

This came from another. That's what I'm doing when I say thank you. Whether it's thank you for this little thing here, or thank you for this big thing here. I'm saying in that moment, this wasn't from me. This was from you.

Christopher:

And so there's kind of a death to self that's coming there. Thanksgiving is laying down and giving up myself, my control, my authority, my ability in that particular thing for which I'm giving thanks. In that thing, whatever it is, I'm saying here, I wasn't in control. Here, I wasn't the master. Here, I wasn't the one who called the shots.

Christopher:

I received. I received. I needed something. And I think that's why thanksgiving, at least part of the reason, thanksgiving can be put in the place of sacrifice here. Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Christopher:

Part of it is because dying, giving yourself up, sacrificing yourself is part of thanksgiving. It's inherent in thanksgiving. So to truly give thanks is to sacrifice myself as being in control, to sacrifice myself and say, here I was not in control. Here I was not the main guy. Here I was not doing it.

Christopher:

Someone else did for me. I'm acknowledging someone else as greater. K. So that that's this kind of concept of thanksgiving. And I will right now have the opportunity to thank one of you.

Christopher:

Downstairs in the refrigerator, in the bottom drawer, there's a bunch of water bottles. Would someone and, Brian, you're going for it? Oh, okay. Okay. Three people got off.

Christopher:

Okay. Thank you, guys. Would someone grab that for me? Thank you. I can't.

Christopher:

I can't do it myself. I'm gonna have to say thank you. So so thanksgiving has this death to self built into it. And if if Yahweh owns everything, remember he just said everything's mine. Everything's mine.

Christopher:

God is the one that we give nothing to, and he's the one who gives everything to us. Now if everything belongs to him, including my body, and my breath, and my life, if everything belongs to him, then I'm always in a position of giving thanks to him for everything I receive. Everything we receive, we give thanks to for him. And if thanksgiving is laying down my life, then I'm continually laying down my life to the Lord, saying, Lord, here it wasn't you, it was or here it wasn't me, it was you. Thank you, Matt.

Christopher:

I appreciate that. The fact that we have bottles, water in little bottles that we can just grab. So if everything belongs to the Lord, everything is being given to me, which means that every moment I have reason to give thanks. But if giving thanks is inherently saying, I wasn't in charge here. I'm laying down my life here.

Christopher:

I'm giving myself up here, then this puts us in a position of continual sacrifice, a continual sacrifice of praise, which is exactly what Paul talks about in Romans 12. Your whole body, your whole life given over as worship. So all of life then becomes this, Father, thank you. Thank you. Here I wasn't in control.

Christopher:

Here I wasn't the one who called the shots again. Here I needed you again every moment, and that's this lifestyle of thanksgiving. May the Lord give it to us. But then specifically here, thanksgiving is not just we give him thanks for everything, though that's true, but there's a specific emphasis on thanksgiving for deliverance. Do you see that in verse 15?

Christopher:

Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. You say, well, where's thanksgiving there? Look down in verse 23. The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.

Christopher:

So you put those two together, verse 15 and verse 23, and what you get is this. When the Lord delivers us, there's that unique emphasis here is on deliverance. When the Lord delivers his people, we thank him, and that thanking of him is a sacrifice that glorifies his name. Giving thanks to him as our deliverer glorifies his name, which is to say it declares to our souls and to the watching world, he is the giver. I'm the receiver.

Christopher:

He is the wellspring. I'm the one who comes and drinks. He is the savior. I'm the one who's saved. When we specifically hear in this deliverance, when we give thanks for deliverance, for being delivered, for being saved, it's giving glory to him.

Christopher:

You're the one who saves. I'm the one who is saved. You are the source. I am the beneficiary. Now what deliverance is in view?

Christopher:

Because that's a big, you know, deliverance. What's what's in view? Well, the the Asaph leaves it leaves it open, which is one of the beautiful things about the psalms. They're they're a form into which we can pour the specificity of our circumstances. So here there's no specific deliverance given, and so we can see any deliverance in it.

Christopher:

All kinds of different deliverances are reasons to give thanks. What are deliverances in your own life? What deliverances have you received? Well, in one sense, every moment really is a deliverance. We are in We are dying bodies.

Christopher:

We are in a dying world that is under the power of the evil one. So to get to the end of the day alive and trusting Christ is a deliverance. It's a deliverance. To get to the end of the day and still believe in Jesus and still have our breath and still have our loved ones, it's a deliverance. It's like a minefield.

Christopher:

It's like a minefield. And the fact that we walk through a day, we ought to come to the end of that day and say, Father, thank you for delivering me from the evil one. What do we pray every day? Deliver us from evil. Every day we're delivered from the prowling lion, the the evil one around us.

Christopher:

So that's true. That's true. Give thanks every day. Father, you delivered me. But then there's many little deliverances, many little deliverances.

Christopher:

You find something that was lost, it's a deliverance. It's just that you were saved out of that little moment of loss. A relationship is healed, that's a deliverance. You're delivered out of the position of brokenness. You recover from an illness.

Christopher:

That's a deliverance. You got better. That's amazing. That's a deliverance. You're brought through a difficult season or a difficult day.

Christopher:

One of those days you look at and you say, oh, boy, here we go. This is the one. This is it. You brought through it? That's a deliverance.

Christopher:

That's a deliverance. So we are constantly being delivered, and that's constantly reason for us to glorify the Lord by offering the sacrifice of praise. Not that we're giving him something. Here you go. You didn't have this before.

Christopher:

Here you go. It's the laying down of my life saying, It's all of you. It's all of you. Thank you. Thank you.

Christopher:

It's all of you. And when we're doing that, we're not giving something to God, and he's like, Good. Thank you. That makes me feel better. That's healing our soul.

Christopher:

That's healing our soul. He doesn't need us to boost his ego by saying thank you. We need to break down our ego by saying thank you. We need to give thanks. It's healing to give thanks.

Christopher:

And we are constantly given an opportunity to do that, not only because we breathe every moment, but because we're delivered every moment from all sorts of things, every single moment being delivered. So everything is a deliverance. Yes. We have many little deliverances. Yes.

Christopher:

But then ultimately, really, there's only one deliverance. All these things are true at the same time. Everything's a deliverance, many different little deliverances, and ultimately, there's only one deliverance. Because the single deliverance from which every deliverance flows, whether it's your next breath of air, or you're getting over a cold, or you're getting out of a particular situation, or you're coming to trust the Lord, every deliverance flows from the single deliverance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ in think about this.

Christopher:

In Jesus' death, every plight you will ever face, Christian, is there. Everything you could ever be delivered from, he bore in himself on the cross. If if you ever enter a situation from which you need to be delivered, one thing you know for sure is that situation was born in Christ. So his death is every one of those situations, but his resurrection is not just his deliverance from his death, it is also your deliverance from what he bore. Everything he bore is overcome in his resurrection, and everyone he bore it for is delivered with his resurrection.

Christopher:

See where it says, verse 15, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you. That's invite You're all being called to that, but supremely Jesus is the one who does that. Jesus calls upon God perfectly for you in his day of trouble. When he cries out, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, He's saying that for himself on the cross, but he's also saying that for you in your loss, in your despair, in your lostness, in your sickness, in your chronic pain, in everything you'll ever be delivered from, he is crying out to God from the depths of your brokenness, such that his deliverance that he receives beyond death is also your deliverance. Every thread in the tapestry of God's people, Every individual thread in the tapestry of God's people comes together in the knot of Christ.

Christopher:

So when he dies, all our deaths are there. And when he is raised, our resurrection is there, our deliverance is there, such that any deliverance you'll ever experience is that deliverance, that resurrection. When Israel was delivered from Egypt, it was nothing but the resurrection being applied retroactively through time. When David was delivered from Saul, nothing but the resurrection being given to him through time, because the resurrection slices through time. A sinner's deliverance from their condemnation, did you come to trust in Jesus, and you were delivered from your condemnation?

Christopher:

That's the application of the resurrection. That's just the resurrection breaking into your life, and your deliverance from anything you'll face is that resurrection. So every deliverance is a rivulet pouring down from the single wellspring of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and more than this, more than this, everything we give thanks for is really ultimately that deliverance, that resurrection. It's not just all your deliverances. You found something.

Christopher:

You got better. You were healed. Your relationship was fixed. All of that is the resurrection breaking in, praise God. But everything you give thanks for, ultimately, you're giving thanks that Christ is risen.

Christopher:

Every time you say thank you, really underneath that, what's being said is Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Why? Why do I say that?

Christopher:

Because everything for which we give thanks, food, health, life, family, deliverance, friendship, whatever else it may be, everything we give thanks for is only good, only able to be given thanks for because Christ is raised. Because Christ is raised. If Christ were not risen, then every good thing you could ever give thanks for, every joy, every treasured person, every life giving relationship, every hope and promise, if Christ is not risen, that's all a lie. That's all a lie. If Jesus is not raised, every good thing is just a little uptick on the path that is going invincibly down into oblivion.

Christopher:

There's nothing to give thanks for. It's all just, oh, that was nice, but we're still damned. We still have no hope. If Christ is not raised, there is no good thing. Good doesn't exist.

Christopher:

In fact, if Christ is not raised, God doesn't exist. I mean, that's the Christian claim. You can't There is no God if Jesus is not raised from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the proclamation of who God is. So if that's not there, there's no God.

Christopher:

There's no God at all. And if there's no God, there's no one to give thanks to. There's no one to give thanks to. So if Christ is not raised, the universe is a dead cold machine, and all of your thanks is like pouring wine out into oblivion. There's nothing.

Christopher:

No one's there to hear it. No one's there to receive it. Thanks itself is a lie if Christ is not raised from the dead. That's something that's often overlooked in our culture. You said this was gonna be short.

Christopher:

It doesn't sound short. Well, something that's often overlooked in our culture is the fact that you can only give thanks to a person. You can only give thanks to a person. If there's no person, there's no one to give thanks to. You can't just, you know, give thanks to even when you give thanks to if you look up and, you know, say, I don't know, thank you to the the sky for the rain.

Christopher:

Great. Well, you're personifying the sky. You you you can't give thanks unless there's a person there. And so if the real if the if if existence is not fundamentally personal, then who are you giving thanks to? Nothing.

Christopher:

Nothing. There's no one to give thanks to. If Christ is not risen, there's no one to give thanks to. But Christ is risen, the crucified one who suffered all of our plight in his death on the cross is delivered from all of that. He is risen, which means there is a God, and he is this God, and therefore in all things we can give thanks.

Christopher:

We can give thanks, not just for the good things, because Christ bore our trials on the cross. And with his resurrection, he ensures that these trials, where are they going? With him into the grave, and with him into glory. Because Christ bore all your plight, Christian, every step you take is leading now to joy. Every step.

Christopher:

Because he bore it all, every path of this life is bent invincibly to joy. It is, because you see in Christ where they all go. Because of this, every season of your life, no matter how dark and painful, is embraced by and leading to love because the crucified one is risen. Therefore, we can give thanks in all things. We can give thanks in all things because we know you're with me in this.

Christopher:

You are bearing this, and you bore this, and this leads to you. This leads to you. So I can give thanks. I can just die into thanks. Lord, what else can I do?

Christopher:

I mean, in the last estimation, what can the human soul do but worship? But just say it's all you. It's all from you. It's all through you. It's all to you.

Christopher:

Let my whole being just be incinerated upon the altar of your will as praise to you. What else is there? What else is there? Because to be incinerated as a praise to God is to rise up to him and to live with him. That's the final answer.

Christopher:

What did Job do when he lost everything? Finally, he fell on his face and worshiped. Not in the happy go lucky, boy, this is great. No. The worship of a shattered soul simply saying, everything's yours.

Christopher:

It's always been yours. It will always be yours. Everything's yours. And in your infinite goodness, you've shown me where it's all going, because Christ is raised. So what can I do but give thanks?

Christopher:

What can I do but worship your name? What can I do but praise you? So because Christ is delivered from death, we can give thanks in every moment. We can continually release our control, continually release our authority, continually release our need to make things happen, and just die into the rest of thanksgiving, of thanksgiving to the God who's born everything in himself, who's carried everything through every night, and who is raised beyond it all into life. He's the one who has, who is, and who surely will bring us through every trial to himself in the crucified and delivered Jesus Christ.

Christopher:

May it be so. I want this to be true for me. I want it to be true for you. We be a people marked by this kind of thanksgiving, and so glorify his name. Let me pray for us.

Christopher:

Father, even our thanks is a gift from you. I can't thank you with a sincere heart unless you give me the grace to thank you. And Lord, I praise you that you are such a God who needs nothing. Lord, that you you do not ever command out of your need, but you command out of your love. So I pray for my own soul, and the souls of my brothers and sisters here, father, that we would receive the good gift of obeying this command to give thanks, because it's what our spirit needs.

Christopher:

It's what our souls need. It's what we need to be people who give thanks, to be people who bleed thanks, because Christ is crucified under all that would pierce us and is raised up again, delivered from every plight as the sworn oath that every path, no matter how tangled with thorns, bleeds for the Christian into the green pastures and the still waters of your presence, such that even the thorns are illumined by the light of the resurrection and witnesses to your goodness. Father, we praise your name. There is no God like you. There is no savior like you.

Christopher:

There is no hope like Christ. May we be a people marked continually by thanks to your name because of him through the spirit, and may you be glorified in it. We pray, father, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Caleb:

Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.