Christopher: Every good is an undeserved good. Every smile from a loved one, every dawning of the sun, every time you drink water and are refreshed, every time you have a meal or see a friend or are able to get up and walk or are conscious of the Lord's presence in your inability to get up and walk. Every good we receive, salvation from hell. Every good is an undeserved good, meaning every good is a reason to give thanks.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at Kingstree 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: We're back in the Psalms today. Now, if you can remember, we've been through five sermons. This is our sixth sermon in the Psalms, and we are moving into the dawn, you might say. You could say that all of the sermons thus far have been in the night. What I mean by that is we did our first general overview, and then we looked at the Psalms of Lamentation, which are Psalms in the night, in the midst of difficulty, crying out to God in the midst of hardship.
We looked at general and suffering. We looked at specific lamentation in the midst of our own sin, we're prayers of repentance, and lamentation that's in the midst of hardship brought about because of enemies that are opposing us. And then we shifted to look at Psalms of Trust, which are more positive, but they're still in the night. Psalms of Trust are still Psalms. It's still difficult.
I'm still in the midst of the hardship, and I'm trusting in the Lord, looking to the Lord, confessing the truth of the Lord in the
Christopher: midst of that difficulty. So
Christopher: in that sense we've been in the night, and today we're moving toward the dawn. We're moving toward the morning. We're going to look at Psalms of Thanksgiving. What kind of language do we have for the times when the darkness breaks and the dawn begins to come? How do we respond to those situations?
So that's what we'll be looking at this morning. Let me pray for us, and then we'll look at this concept of thankfulness or gratitude and move into the Psalms together, but let me pray first. Father, we thank you for gathering us here and for your mercy that is at work in each one of us. We thank you, father, that we are yours. We are, as we read in Jeremiah, we are like clay on the wheel of your will shaped by your hands, made vessels to do the work you have for us to do.
And I pray, Father, that today that would be done, that I would be a faithful and fitting vessel to administer the good wine of Christ to his people, to his church, and that it would be Christ that is tasted and seen in the vessel that is unnecessary once once we've received what is in it, and I pray, father, that your people also would be shaped into the vessels that you intend for them to be, shaped by the hands of your word, shaped by the hands of your spirit, shaped into the form that you intend for them for their good and their joy and your glory. So father, come, we pray, empower now by the spirit, the unfolding of your word, and grant grace to everyone in this building here upstairs and downstairs. Grant us grace that we might now receive something more of Jesus Christ. We pray these things, Father, in his name, amen. So as we did for trust, I thought it might be fitting to start this morning by asking ourselves, what is thankfulness?
What is gratitude? How might we describe that? How could we define it? And I think a definition that works well, and I don't think I'm not saying this is the only definition or the definition, but it seems to me that a biblical definition, a biblically defensible definition of thankfulness would be this. Thankfulness is the fitting response of the heart to an undeserved good.
Thankfulness is the fitting response of the heart to an undeserved good. So that's the definition I'm working with as I go into this sermon today, and as I'm looking over the text that I looked over this week. So let me just lay out for you why I've said this and look at each of the pieces of it. First,
Christopher: thankfulness is fitting. Fitting. What do I
Christopher: mean by that? What I mean is it's not merely something we do because it's polite, or we do because we're told to and we're commanded to so you do it. Thankfulness is itself a fitting and right and good and healthy response. It's fitting. Let me read for you Psalm 92 verses one through four, which we began the sermon with this morning.
It is good, it is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. Or again, Psalm 147 in verse one says this, Praise the Lord, which is similar to thanks. We'll get into that when we move into Psalms of Praise. Praise the Lord for it is good to sing praises to our God for it is pleasant and a song of praise is fitting. It's fitting.
It's the right response. It's a good and healthy response. And so thankfulness, again, is not just something we're supposed to do. It is something that is right and healthy and fitting. So think about the pupil in your eye.
If it's healthy, if it's rightly ordered, you shine a light on it and it responds by constricting them, constricting the light. That's how you know, Oh, the eye is working. It's healthy. It's right. Okay?
Well, same thing for the soul. When the soul receives, or the heart, when we receive an undeserved good, the natural response, the healthy, the right response is thankfulness. The light shines on the eye, it constricts. Good falls upon the soul, it gives thanks. That shows that it's working rightly.
Christopher: But for many of
Christopher: us, and myself included, our souls are not rightly ordered much of the time. The light falls on them and the eye just doesn't respond, you think, Woah, something's wrong. The good falls on our soul, and we're still upset, and we're still hard, and we're still just, Okay, what's next? What's next? Look at this.
Look at it. That bears witness to a disordered soul, a disordered heart because thankfulness again is the fitting response, and this is why we need the Psalms, not just to read the Psalms, but to let them shape our soul so that our souls begin to respond like the Psalms. Praise to the Lord. Thanks to the Lord. The Psalms are shaping us into a people whose soul fittingly responds.
So that's the first thing. Thankfulness is a fitting, right, healthy response. Secondly, it's a response of the heart. It's response of the heart. Back to Psalm 92.
You don't have to follow me around right now. I'm just jumping to various Psalms. We'll land on a Psalm eventually, and that's when
Christopher: you can turn there with me. Back to Psalm 92, verse four.
Christopher: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, down to verse four, For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands I sing for joy. Those are heart words. Those aren't just I'm doing them words. Those are words that say something's gotten into my heart and made me feel, worked in my affections.
And so we've all seen the little kid who is told to say thank you and they say, Thank you. And okay, we won't discuss the merits of that right now. I mean, you gotta start somewhere, but I think we would all say, That's not ultimately what we're looking for. That's not the kind of thankfulness I'm after ultimately. We know, even if we don't articulate it, thankfulness is supposed to have the affections in it.
You're supposed to feel it. It's supposed to be a response of the heart. So yes, you start with tell your aunt thank you. Thank you. Okay, start there, but what we want, right functioning thankfulness is coming from the heart.
So again, because our souls are disordered, if you just wait, if I just wait until I feel thankful to give thanks, it's not gonna happen that often. Once in a while something extraordinary happens perhaps, but if I just wait to feel, it's not going to happen. Not because feelings don't matter, but because my heart is like a hard piece of clay. Have you ever worked with clay? You pick up a fresh piece of clay and you think, You can't make anything out of this.
It's rock hard, and you've got to really work, squish and turn and fold and work, and finally it starts to get soft, and then you can actually make something out of it, but you had to work at it for a long time. Often our hearts are like this regarding thankfulness, this block of hard clay, and they need to be worked on and shaped and structured and folded to begin to become warm enough to be shaped to give thanks. And again, that's what the Psalms are doing. That's not just going to happen. I've said I'm a broken record here, but it's all right.
That's not just gonna happen in eight sermons on the Psalms. I'm getting us started, but the hope is as we as a church are reading through the Psalms, Jesus Christ by his own hands through his word is molding that hard thankless clay of our heart and starting to warm it so that it doesn't just say the right things, but it's beginning to feel the right things. But don't feel bad that you have to start with, I'm just gonna read the Psalm of Thanks. I don't feel thankful, but I'm gonna read a Psalm of Thanks because that reading it, even when you don't feel it, is the Lord's hands shaping the cold clay, working on it, working on it, working on it. And the goal is we're getting to a point where I feel thankful.
I feel gratitude when the sun comes up. I feel gratitude when I draw a breath. I feel gratitude when I wake up in the morning. And some of you maybe are there, praise God, but we wanna work toward that, and the Psalms are shaping us to do that. Thankfulness is a fitting response of the heart to an undeserved good.
That's the third part of this little definition we're working with, to an undeserved good. Let me give
Christopher: you an extreme example. In Psalm 107, starting in verse 10, here's what
Christopher: it says. Some, the sum of God's people, Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in afflictions and in irons, for they had rebelled against the word of God and spurned the counsel of the most high. So he bowed down their hearts with hard labor. They fell down with none to help. So they are in this situation because of their own making.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. So you can see that is an extreme example. Here's an undeserved good.
I'm in this situation because of my own sin. And the Lord breaks in and heals, and you say, I give thanks. That undeserved good, I am giving thanks to you, Father. That's absolutely right. But you might say, Well, okay, in that situation, but aren't there lots of goods that I should give thanks for that aren't necessarily undeserved?
I mean, I give thanks for my paycheck, but I deserve that, right? I worked for that. I give thanks for my health, but I'm working for my health. I'm eating right. I'm working out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I give thanks for my house, but I paid for this house. I bought this house. I built this house. So those are undeserved goods, right? Well, I would suggest, yes, those and all goods are ultimately undeserved goods.
Here's something that Paul writes in Romans. You might say, Why are we going to Romans? I'll show you why in a moment. Paul says this, All, both Jew and Greek, by
Christopher: which he means every human being, all are under sin. As it
Christopher: is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.
Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. So it's harsh, but if we're being ultimate, if going to the ultimate ground here, the fact is the only thing we deserve in and of ourselves is damnation. Now you could talk about, Well, doing hard work deserves honor. Give honor to whom honor is due.
That's right. There's categories for that, but ultimately all of us deserve only the just judgment of God. If I were to add up all I've done, all I've said, all I've thought, the only thing I'm purchasing with that is the judgment of God on my life. Condemnation, which means every good, every good is an undeserved good. Every smile from a loved one, every dawning of the sun, every time you drink water and are refreshed, every time you have a meal or see a friend or are able to get up and walk or are conscious of the Lord's presence in your inability to get up and walk.
Every good we receive, salvation from hell. Every good is an undeserved good, meaning every good is a reason to give thanks. So that's our definition, and again, I'm not saying this is the only one. This is a workable and biblically defensible definition. Thankfulness is a fitting response of the heart to an undeserved good.
Okay, with that in mind, let's look at how the Psalms help create that in us, help shape that kind of response in us, and we're going to focus on Psalm 138, and this is where you can turn there if you'd like. Psalm 138 is where we're gonna spend the majority of our time this morning. It's only eight verses. I'll read the whole thing for us, and then we'll look at a few parts of it, five different parts of it actually. So here's the Psalm.
I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart. Before the gods, I sing your praise. I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness. For you have exalted above all things, your name and your word. On the day I called you answered me, my strength of soul you increased.
All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, oh Lord, for they have heard the word of your mouth. They shall sing of the ways of the Lord for great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. You stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. So let's look at five aspects of this, just touching on each one briefly, but seeing how does this Psalm teach us about thankfulness and shape us to be thankful. First, this Psalm shows us that thankfulness is directed toward a person.
Verses one and two, I give you thanks, O Lord, O Yahweh. That's the personal name of God. I give you thanks, oh Lord. And you might say, Well, you know, that's a small thing, but it's a transformative thing if you think about it. Whenever we give thanks to God for a meal, for healing, for the sunrise, for an experience or a moment that he's given us.
Whenever we're giving thanks, we're not giving thanks to fate or to the universe or to some religious idea or machinery. We're giving thanks to a person. We're talking to a person, the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. And so that means every instance of thanks is a moment of fellowship with a person. Thank you, Father.
It interacting with a person who knows and cares how easy it is to think God is distant, and you're shocked when something happens that shows, Woah, he listened to my prayer. It's surprising, but it shouldn't be. He is a person who is right with us, and giving thanks reminds us of that, because we're thanking a person. And what this does now is to turn everything you could give thanks for, your health, food, a moment the Lord's given you, the changes of seasons, clothing to wear, his grace in the midst of our suffering, everything you give thanks for now becomes the presence of a person.
Christopher: He gave that to you. He's there with you.
Christopher: If I come to my office, I've come to my office before, and I see a note from Courtney or some chocolate chip cookies or something, it's not just like, Wow, this showed up here. It's a personal thing. Now there's, Wow, she's thinking of me. She knows me. She's here.
So too, giving thanks for anything is giving thanks to the personal presence and grace of the Lord. So yes, we give thanks I give thanks to Courtney for that. I give thanks to your coworkers or your family for the things they do. That's right. But ultimately all good is from him.
So all thanks flows back to him, just like all rivers flow back to the ocean. Thanks flows back to God. So that's the first thing. Thanks is directed to a person. Secondly, thanks is a witness to supremacy.
Again, look at verses one and two. I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart. Before the gods I sing your praise, I bow down toward your holy temple. I give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness. You, you, your, your, your.
The emphasis here is above every other God, beyond every other God. I am giving you thanks. And in that way thanks becomes an acknowledgement, This is from you. You are supreme here. You are the Lord here.
By giving thanks to God we are confessing your supremacy over this thing that I'm giving thanks for. To give thanks for our health is to confess his supremacy over our health. To give thanks for God raising us up from sleep is to give witness that he is the one who has supremacy over my life, over my ability to sleep or rise or anything else. Give thanks for my family or my ability to understand or my work or my healing is to confess that he is supreme over all these things. To give thanks for a thing is also to say, And it's in your hands.
You're supreme over it. Give thanks for this house. You're supreme over this house. Give thanks for this food. You're the one who gives food.
So giving thanks to God declares his supremacy. Think about if you're at a football game, and I believe I did go to one in my life when I was younger. And I've seen this as well, that at games you can raise a banner or a flag or some sign of the team that you're supporting. And you've got it up there and you've got it. And raising that up is saying, These ones are supreme.
I want all of you to know this is my team, and they're the better team. Now that's subjective, whereas when we confess something of God, it's objective. It is true, But it's still a similar thing. When I give thanks to God in Christ, I'm raising up a banner saying, He, you are supreme. Every other God, every watching spirit, every person around me, I want you to see this one is supreme.
I breathe because of him. I eat because of him. If I get a paycheck, it's because of him. He's supreme. So giving thanks is a way to publicly, even before the watching heavens, confess, This is my God and he is supreme.
So we give thanks to a person. In our giving thanks, we're proclaiming the supremacy of that person. And then third, we give thanks for specific things that the Lord has done. Look at verses three through eight. On the day I called, you answered me.
He's thinking of a particular moment. Perhaps you have one that comes to mind. On the day I called, you answered me. My strength of soul you increased. All the kings of the earth will give thanks to you for they have heard the words of your mouth.
They shall sing of your ways. They shall sing of the ways of the Lord for great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. So these are all aspects of things the Lord has done. Verse seven again, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.
You stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies. So in each of these situations, the psalmist is pointing to specific things and saying thank you for that, either in my life or in the lives of other people, either in the present or in the past, but it's specific things. And I think one reason that Psalms teach us to do this is because to say thank you for being good is true, but it's blurry. It's low resolution. It's fuzzy.
What does that mean? What does that look like? When has that ever happened? Thank you for being good. But if we say thank you for bringing me through this last night of fever, thank you for supplying the funds when we didn't have anything, thank you that though I'm laying here on this bed unable to get up, I feel that you're with me.
I know that you're with me. Saying thank you for specific things is focusing our vision on the Lord, clarifying, upping the resolution so that we see his goodness more clearly. Specificity clarifies who he is, the one we're giving thanks to. And the Psalms teach us give thanks for specific things, particular things in your life, in the lives of others. That leads us to the fourth point now.
We give thanks to a person, giving thanks shows supremacy. We give thanks for specific things he's done. Leading into the fourth, we give thanks ultimately for who he is. We give thanks for who he is. So I've said this many times before, and I hope you're getting it.
What God does shows us who he is. His actions flow uninhibited from his heart and therefore give the perfect picture of him or a true picture of him. So when we give thanks for his specific works, we're giving thanks for his specific character. Thank you for doing this, but that then shows me you are the kind of God who does this. Thank you for preserving my family through that feverish night and thank you for being the kind of God who does that.
His works show us who he is, and that's where our thanks lands. Ultimately, we want to be saying not just thank you for giving this, but thank you for being the sort of God who would give this. Thank you that that's what you are like. Thank you that this shows us your character. Look down in verse five and six of chapter of Psalm 138.
They shall sing of the ways of the Lord. That's the things he's done. For great is the glory of the Lord. That's who he is. Or verse six, Though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.
That shows his character. He's the kind of God who though he is highly exalted is present with the lowly, is down with the lowly. So when we give him thanks for that, thank you, God, that from the throne of heaven, you met me on my sick bed and were present with me. That is saying you are the kind of God who descends into the lowly and the ugly and the dark and the uncomfortable. So we're giving thanks for who he is ultimately.
And then of course supremely that is revealed in the work of Jesus Christ, which is the specific work for which we give thanks that shows who he is, but we'll come to that in a moment. First, there's one more thing we need to see about Psalm 138. So we've seen in this Psalm, the Psalms direct us to give thanks to a person, namely God himself. Thankfulness witnesses to his supremacy. We give thanks for the specific things he's done in our lives and lives of those around us.
We give thanks ultimately for who he is because that's revealed in his specific works. And finally, giving thanks strengthens our faith. Giving thanks strengthens our faith. Look at verse seven through eight. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.
You stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies and your right hand delivers me. The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. So in context of this whole psalm, David's thanks, it starts with thanks.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. They will give thanks to you because you're like this. And at the end now, after all that giving thanks, he says, You will fulfill your purposes for me. You will do this. I've given thanks.
I've seen what you're like, And so I have confidence you will be like this. You will be with me. I don't know what that'll look like. I don't know the specifics of that, but I know you won't stop being who you've always been. I know you won't stop being whom I am giving thanks to you for being.
You will be this God, and it strengthens our faith when we give thanks. Let me give an example that helped me. Think of a construction site, and these guys are building a tower, and every day a shipment of bricks is brought in and dumped out on the site. All these bricks are given to them, and the workmen just kind of stand around, kind of kick the bricks, maybe pick one up and toss it back, and they're not doing anything. The tower's not being built and the bricks are just piling up.
Now think of the men who the bricks are piled up, they grab the brick, they lay it down, they put down the mortar, put down another brick, and they're building this tower out of the bricks they're being given so that when the storm comes, they have a place to go for refuge. So in a similar way, the Lord's gracious works toward his people in the past and in your own life are bricks that he's pouring out into the work site of your soul, bricks being given to us every single day. And thankfulness is what actually picks up those bricks and begins to build a tower with them. When I'm not thankful, the bricks are there, but I'm just kicking them around. Oh, that's neat.
Okay. And then the storm comes, where do I go? All the bricks are laying around on the ground. The Lord's given me plenty to work with. But thankfulness takes that brick up and puts it down, puts the mortar on it and starts actually building, Thank you for this.
Thank you for this. And as we're doing that, we're building a fortress of his faithfulness that we can run to in the midst of difficulty because we've seen his faithfulness in the past. So giving thanks strengthens our faith. You might say if we wanted to be a little more elaborate with it, remembering is like picking up the brick of his gracious work. Thankfulness in the heart is like the mortar that goes down, and giving thanks is like putting the brick in place.
Thank you for the sunrise. Thank you for this breath. Thank you for your presence in my sorrow. Thank you for my brothers and my sisters. Thank you, thank you, thank you is building, this fortress that we can then run to in the midst of hardship.
So we see from Psalm 138 as an example psalm of thanks, and other psalms would back this up. We see at least these five things, that the Psalms are shaping our souls in this way. They're shaping our souls to give thanks to a person. Thanks is personal. It's not just, Hey, that was nice, or Glad it turned out that way.
Thanks is personal to a person. Secondly, thanks witnesses the supremacy of this person. If I'm giving him thanks for it, I'm declaring he's sovereign over it. Thank you for my life is to say you are supreme over my life. So giving thanks is declaring his supremacy in the face of the world and in the face of the watching, the spiritual world.
We are saying, The Lord is the one who is supreme over these because I'm giving thanks to him. Third, we give thanks for specific works. Say thank you for your goodness. That's fine. That's not bad.
But the Psalms teach us give thanks for specific things because that ups the resolution on who he is and on what he's like, which leads to the fourth thing, we give thanks for who he is because his goodness to us, his grace to us, his mercifully hand feeding us a breath every single moment, it's not just random. He's like that. He's generous. I've said this before. How much is one breath worth?
Okay? If you were suffocating, what would you pay to get a breath? Would you say, Oh, that's too much. Dollars 1,000, that's too much. No, no.
You'd probably give your whole savings to get a breath, which means one breath is probably worth everything in your bank account. And you get a breath, you get hundreds, thousands of them every day. The Lord is just giving, giving, giving this most precious thing to us. So he is like this. He's like this.
We give thanks to him because he's like this, and finally we give thanks Giving thanks strengthens our faith. Now
Christopher: in conclusion, I want us to
Christopher: turn to consider the cross because I've left this unmentioned until this point, not because it is not important, but because it is the most important under everything we've said as a foundation to everything that we've talked about this morning is Christ crucified and risen. Nothing I've said will hold any water unless that is the case, unless Christ is risen. So let's consider that, how Jesus Christ slain and raised is in fact the foundation and the wellspring of all gratitude, of all thankfulness. We start just by looking at the five things we just laid out, how each one of these things ultimately is grounded upon Christ. We give thanks to a person.
Okay? The person to whom we give thanks is the one supremely revealed in Jesus. When you give thanks for a meal, you're giving thanks to the person we know in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't stop being a person when he ascended. He didn't stop being himself and become faceless God idea when he went to heaven.
He is the person we meet in the gospels, and that's the person to whom we are giving thanks because that's the person who shows us the Father perfectly. Jesus Christ, we said that when we give thanks, we proclaim the supremacy of God. Well, that supremacy is supremely displayed in Christ. God works the supremacy of his power in Christ when God in Jesus binds his condemned people to himself in the flesh and bears the wrath death we are due and descends to the depths of our God forsakenness in love flooding our forsakenness with his presence. And when he rises from those depths, carrying us, carrying his bride, carrying his church, carrying all the redeemed cosmos with her, when he does this, he is declaring his supremacy.
That is the supreme supremacy of God that we bear witness to every time we say, You're supreme over my life. You're supreme over my finances, you're supreme over my home. Beneath all that is the supremacy of the slain and risen Jesus Christ. Third, said when we give thanks, we give thanks for a specific work, something he's done. Well, the supreme specific work is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That is the work of God. Every other work, every other work of God flows from this single great work at the center of all that he does. Ultimately to say thank you for anything is to say thank you for the death and resurrection of Jesus. We'll touch on that here as we close. So that's the specific work for which we give thanks.
We said we give thanks for who God is, for his character ultimately. Again, that character, what is that? It's not blurry. It's not some generic God character. The character for which we give thanks to God, the who that we're giving thanks for God being is the one we meet in Jesus, is the one we meet in Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection.
And finally we said giving thanks strengthens our faith. Well, our faith is Christ crucified and risen. There's no faith apart from him. And in fact, two Easters ago, seeing from Hebrews, I don't expect you to remember this, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ is where all faith is anchored. Every act of faith, every clinging of faith is simply saying Christ is risen.
Faith exists because Christ is risen. So the faith that thankfulness strengthens is the faith that clings to the risen Christ. And so everything we've seen then about thankfulness thus far is rooted in Christ, rooted in Christ. And that leads then to our very final point for this morning, which is learning to give thanks for Christ is learning to give thanks for everything as it is in Christ. Let me read for you a passage from Ephesians about thankfulness that may be, it's surprising at first.
Ephesians chapter five verses eighteen and twenty says this, And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. Here's what that looks like. Addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Giving thanks always and for everything. That's where thankfulness leads.
Giving thanks always and for everything in the name of Christ. Now you hear that and you might say, Do I give thanks for cancer? Do I give thanks for chronic pain? Do I give thanks for wayward children or lost loved ones? That's not what this text is saying.
It's not saying give thanks for just bad stuff. I'm glad bad things are happening to me. That's not the idea. Give thanks for evil things. No, not in and of themselves.
Look at what it says. Give thanks for always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is to say, give thanks ultimately for all things as they are held by Christ, as they are born in Christ, as they are transformed through Christ. Christ is integral to our giving thanks ultimately. Now, what do I mean by this? Consider what we say, what you're saying when you thank God for the cross, as we all do.
Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the cross. When we say thank you, Father, for the love you poured out over us, thank you for your mercy given to us from the cross. Thank you for the healing worked upon the cross. Thank you for the beauty of your name displayed at the cross.
All of that is right and good and necessary, but think about what you're saying when you say that. What are we thanking God for? Are we thanking him in that moment that his beloved son was put through excruciating torment? Am I saying thank you for that? Am I thanking God that the nails tore through his flesh?
Am I thanking God that Jesus was spit on and beaten? I'm glad that happened. Thank you. Am I thanking God that Jesus was stripped and laughed at and
Christopher: shamed? You hear that and you think, Of course not. In a sense, yes, I am, because all
Christopher: of that is in the cross. You don't get that out of the cross. You can't sanitize that away from the cross. All of that is in there. You can't stand and say, Thank you for the cross, and not have that there.
But of course, no, we're not thanking God for those things. We're not thanking God for those things in and of themselves. We're thanking God for what this has become through the resurrection. We're thanking God for what the resurrection has revealed this to be. And you'll hear me say this a lot, but it is critical.
The resurrection is not the happy ending pinned at the end. The resurrection reveals and transfigures and so utterly conquers the horror of the cross that we two thousand years later sing for joy about the cross. That's what the resurrection does to the cross. It turns the agonies of Calvary into the songs of heaven. It transfigures the horror of the cross, the stripping, the beauty, the laughing, the shaming into the beauty of our God, such that you can say, Thank you for the cross.
And this is where it comes to us. This is how it helps us give thanks at all times. Every time we say, Thank you for the cross. Thank you, God, for Jesus Christ. We're saying, Thank you for what the resurrection has done to the crucifixion.
Thank you for what you have made of this moment, of this horror. Thank you for what you've done. And if that's the case, then we're also in the moment of saying thank you for the cross, we're also saying thank you for what the resurrection has made and is making and will make of all the horrors in my life, of all the things in my life. I'm not saying thank you for this cancer that's ravaging the body of my loved one. The scripture's not calling us to do that.
But if we say thank you for the cross, I'm saying thank you for what you made of the act where you bore this cancer, where you took this completely. I'm not saying thank you for the horrors that have happened to this family, but when I say thank you for the cross, I'm saying thank you, God, that somehow this was here and this became beautiful. I don't see how this can be, I can give thanks for this. I don't see how this can be beautiful, but this was here and this is beautiful now. The cross is beautiful now.
His passion is beautiful now. And so for us who in this veil of tears can't say, Thank you for this, because we haven't seen where it's going yet. But we can say, Thank you for this, and I know this is in here. So I can give you thanks for everything. Because all of this weeping and pain and grief is in here.
And this cross, this crucified body is raised and has been shown to be beauty beyond my wildest imagining. So somehow this is going here too. So thank you, God, for all things in the name of Jesus Christ as they are born in Jesus Christ, because that's where it's all going. The crucified one, the wounds of death raised up as they are at the end of Luke's gospel as witnesses of blessing, so that from the wounds of death pour down the grace of love to drown all the world into life. That is a picture of where everything is going.
That's a picture of where everything is going, the final shape of reality. So we give thanks for him, for what God has done in him, for the risen Christ, and in him knowing that those same hands we can give thanks for whatever they're holding, and they're holding all things. So in Christ we're able to give thanks, and this helps us do that. Coming to the table helps us do that. Why?
Well, do you know the traditional Greek word for the Lord's Supper? It's Eucharist. You've maybe heard that before. Maybe when I say that you think, Oh, that sounds Catholic. Well, it's just the Greek word for this meal, Eucharist, and what that word is is thanks.
Eucharisto means give thanks, and the reason this meal has traditionally been called the Eucharist is because Jesus gives thanks. He takes the bread, he takes the cup, and he gives thanks to the Father, And in a deeper sense, this meal is our Thanksgiving. To eat this is our Thanksgiving, is our Eucharist, because why? In his death Jesus bears all things like we just said. With his resurrection he turns his death, and so all born in it, into glory, into beauty, into love, into that for which we give thanks.
Not those things in and of themselves, but as they are transformed in him. So as we come then to this table and receive the elements that bear witness to that cross, we're doing, we're entering into this Thanksgiving. We're not just saying, though of course we are, thanking God for the steadfast love and faithfulness manifest to us in the broken body and the spilled blood of Jesus Christ, but we're also giving thanks to him for all things as they will finally be because all the whole universe of our mortal anguish is represented right here in the bread that points to the body that bore it all, in the wine that points to the blood that was spilled for it all. All our mortal anguish is represented here and you're about to eat it as mercy. You're about to eat it as grace.
You're about to receive it as a gift of love. So as we do receive this as a down payment of what will one day soon be true of every moment and memory in your life, born in Christ, turned to you to the food of eternal life, to the bread of joy and the wine of gladness. So let me pray for us and then we'll come to this table of Thanksgiving together. Father, we thank you. Help us to thank you.
Every breath, every moment, every instance of our existence, father, is a mercy that you've given to us through Christ. Our whole life as it were pours out to us from the opened heart of Jesus Christ. We thank you for him. We are awash in mercy. We're floating on an ocean of your grace.
And father, I pray for my own heart to be softened from that hard clay and turned so that it gives thanks. It feels gratitude as is so overwhelmingly the reason to do. You've just given us every reason. So Lord, make us a thankful people and we praise you, we praise you, we praise you for Jesus Christ, for his cross, for his death, and for the resurrection that turns that death and all things in it to the praise of your name, to the glory of your excellence, and to the joy of your saints. Lord, we pray all these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree 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.