Praying to Give Thanks

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As we’ve been talking about some of the reasons why we pray, and not necessarily just to convince you to pray, because I think we all pretty well understand that we need to pray, even if we think I don’t know how to do it right or it feels awkward because I don’t do it as much as I’m supposed to. I think we’re all fairly convinced of the need for prayer, but more than trying to convince you by giving you reasons for prayer, Maybe more to give you some subject matter and some things to think about. Because I don’t know if you’re like me.

I think I’ve shared this before that I’ve read about people like John Wesley. And it amazed me how he said at the end, I think it was John Wesley, who said at the end of his life he felt laziness had begun to creep in because he had a tendency to stay in bed until after 5 o’clock in the morning instead of getting up to pray. I’m sorry, 5 o’clock should not come twice a day.

It does, but it shouldn’t. And then he wouldn’t begin his day without praying for four hours first. And I don’t know about y’all, but I run out of things to say at the most after 30 minutes. Okay, what else is there?

I’m not saying you have to pray for four hours straight in the morning. But as we think, I’m supposed to pray, but I run out of things to say, what is there to talk about? We’ve talked about some things the last couple weeks, like bringing honor to God.

What’s wrong with going to God and just telling him how great he is every once in a while, if not every day? What’s wrong with going to God and being honest about the things He already knows that we’ve done? Maybe one of the reasons that our prayer life is hindered, maybe one of the reasons that our prayer life is not what it ought to be, is because when we go to God, we’re still trying to hold back and hide from Him things He already knows.

If we have a relationship with somebody else that’s built on, I have my secrets and I’m not going to let you into this part of my life, it’s going to be a shallow relationship at best. So why would we expect anything different from our relationship with God? And so we talked last week about praying to confess our sins. Tonight, I want us to give some thought to praying to give thanks.

And one of the stories we shared at Vacation Bible School this week was about the ten lepers. You may be familiar with the story from the New Testament, the ten lepers, who came to Jesus one day and said, basically, would you heal us? And Jesus told them, go show yourself to the priest, because they had to be examined by the Jewish priests to make sure they were actually clean of this leprosy before they could go back to living among people, because they didn’t understand germs and all of that in their day, but they understood it was so contagious.

The lepers had to live out away from the people, and they had to be inspected by the priests to make sure they were okay to go back and live in society. And so Jesus said, your faith has made you whole, go show yourself to the priests. And they did, and they rejoiced in the fact that they’d been healed, but only one of the ten turned around and went back to thank Jesus for what he’d done.

And that’s a story I remember from hearing it as a child, as my dad would read us stories. That’s one that has always stuck out to me, the man who returned to say thank you. Folks, what’s wrong with, as we go to take our shopping list to God and say, I sure would like this, and could you do this for me, and I’d like to have one of these.

What’s wrong with taking a list to God of the things that we’re thankful to him about? And so I want to look at this idea as briefly as we can tonight about prayer being important just for the reason of giving thanks. In another place in the Psalms, it tells us in Psalm 106, Praise ye the Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.

We have so many reasons. We have unending reasons why we can give thanks to God. And so we’re instructed for that reason, to go to him and praise him and to give thanks to him.

There’s a verse in Colossians that says, Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. We are not only commanded to do everything that we do to the honor and glory of God, which raises the principle that if we can’t do it to the honor and glory of God, we probably ought not to do it. But we are not only supposed to do it to the honor and glory of God, but out of a spirit of thankfulness for whatever it is that he’s done for us.

And then of course the verse that always comes to mind for me when I think about thankfulness in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 where it says in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. God’s will for us is that we be thankful and that we give thanks to him in everything. And as I have made clear so many times it does not say for everything necessarily but in everything.

If you can go to God and say, thank you for this cancer, you know what, you’re more spiritual than I am. If you can say, Lord, thank you for the loved one I lost, you’re more spiritual than I am. I find it very hard to be thankful for everything.

But if we’re willing to look, there’s something to be thankful for in everything, in every season. Now, I can’t tell you exactly what that’s going to be. But I know that some of the times I have grown the most spiritually in my life, some of the times that I’ve grown the closest to God, have been through the times of adversity, when I would look at the situation and say, there is no way on earth that I could give thanks for that situation.

But in that situation, I can give thanks to God in it because of what he’s done working on me and in me through the situation. So this is tied pretty closely, what we’re going to see here in chapter 30, tied pretty closely to the idea from two weeks ago about praying to honor God. Because as you’ll recall, I shared with you that all too often we want to praise God just for the things that he’s done for us.

And there’s nothing wrong with praising God for the things that he’s done for us. Thank you, God, for sending your son to die for us. That’s a great thing to praise him for.

He didn’t have to do that, and he did it anyway. We can praise God. How incredible is God that he let us be born and live in a free country?

He’s blessed us incredibly. How incredible is it that God gives me a roof to sleep under every night. God has done incredible things for all of us, whether we realize it or not.

But we also need to honor him not just for the things that he’s done, but for who he is. Because those things on the other side of them don’t just tell us about what he’s done, but who he is. It’s not just that he sent his son to die for us, it’s that he’s the kind of God who would send his son to die for us.

God has incredible mercy and love and patience and forgiveness that, quite honestly, I don’t possess and neither do you. And we could spend all day pondering on those attributes of God, those things like his mercy, like his generosity, his holiness. But we also come back and give thanks for the things that he’s done.

And so we come to Psalm chapter 30, verse 1. It says, I will extol thee, I will lift you up, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up and has not made my foes to rejoice over me. See, at any point in David’s adult life, God could have easily taken his hand of protection off of David, and his enemies would have made quick work of him.

And if you don’t think they would have gloated over that, you’re mistaken. I mean, I believe it was Moses who made the case before God that, God, if you let us die in the wilderness here, what will your, not just our enemies, but what will your enemies say? If you leave the Israelites here to die in the wilderness, won’t they say that you weren’t even able to protect us?

I don’t think Moses had to convince God. I think God was going to do what God was going to do anyway. But it was a matter of getting Moses on God’s side going through this conversation.

At any point, God could have removed his hand of protection from David, and David’s life, his reign, all of it would have been over because he was so constantly beset by enemies throughout his entire reign in Israel. Well, and even before that. And you know, we know that they would have rejoiced.

They would have gloated. They would have said, where is David’s God? And David said, you know, I will praise you.

I will extol you, lift you up because you lifted me up and have not made my foes to rejoice over me. Oh Lord, my God, I cried unto thee and now has healed me. Now he could have been speaking here about a physical healing in the sense that he had some sort of ailment or injury.

He could be speaking of spiritual healing. David would have had to have gone through a major healing process after the sin that he had committed with Bathsheba and then having her husband killed and all sorts of things. David was afflicted the rest of his life for his sins, and yet there would have been a spiritual healing process.

So he could be referring to any one of those things. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave. Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit.

Again, it would have been very easy for David to have been slaughtered and go into the grave. And David says, you’ve kept me alive. You’ve kept me out of the pit.

Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. So David turns, and because of what God has done, instructs those who would hear this song of praise that he’s writing. Sing to the Lord, those who belong to God, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

As you think about the holiness of God, give thanks for that. which we’ll come back to in just a moment. For his anger endureth but a moment.

Guys, you want to talk about something to be thankful for. God’s anger endures but a moment. We don’t like to, in our society, we don’t like to hear about the anger of God, but there’s room in the Bible for the God of the Bible to be a God of wrath, and he is, and I think we ignore that to our own peril, and yet the Bible is clear that his wrath, his anger lasts but a moment.

In his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.

Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made supplication.

What profit is there in my blood when I shall go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?

Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing.

Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever. So what he says is God has completely, that God has turned his life around, God has turned his circumstances around by his blessings and by his favor.

That he speaks of the anger of God, but he says it endures just a moment. Yes, God is wrathful, but God is also eminently merciful. If God was just all wrath and there was no mercy there to temper that, we would have been wiped out as a human race a long time ago, I’m convinced.

In his favor is life. See, we don’t find life by chasing the things that the world has to offer. We find life, we find real life in the favor of God.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. You know, we don’t live in a perfect world, and there is sin. there are consequences to sin, there’s pain.

Even if we’re not the ones who are guilty of a particular sin, sin is not committed in a vacuum and it hurts other people. I was telling a friend the other day talking about, well, I feel like such and such, they were telling me, I feel like such and such is happening to me because God’s punishing me for X, Y, and Z. I said, I’ve spent a lot of time studying the Old Testament.

And as I understand it, bad things happen to us for one of three reasons. Could be God’s punishing us, Could be God’s trying to get our attention. And three, it could just be the consequences of we live in a fallen sinful world.

And sometimes we’re hurt by sin even if it’s not our sin. But trying to reassure them, I said, what I’ve noticed out of the Old Testament is when it’s one of the first two, God is usually very clear in letting the people know why they’re going through the circumstances they are. I said, so has God shown you through his word?

Has the Spirit impressed on you as you’ve been in prayer that you’re being punished for this? No. he’s told me the opposite.

Okay. Then sometimes I know it’s not comforting but sometimes bad things happen to good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people and bad things to bad people and good things to you know the drill. He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. But because we live in a sinful world we sin other people around us sin there’s consequences there’s fallout there’s going to be pain there’s going to be suffering but he says even in this weeping endures for a night but joy cometh in the morning.

God is able to put things to right again. Now that doesn’t mean he’s always going to fix everything perfectly on this side of heaven, but God has a way of making things work out for our good and for his glory that I don’t even begin to understand. And then of course we know at the end of all of it, he sets everything to right.

And in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by your favor, you’ve made my mountain to stand strong. We don’t have to speculate a lot about what that means.

God strengthened him. God defended him. But he says here in verse 7, you hid your face and I was troubled.

Well, certainly if God had hidden his face from David in a time of trouble, that was going to be quite distressing. But he says here in verse 8, I cried to thee, O Lord, and I made supplication. I brought my petitions.

And if you remember the last few weeks, that word supplication is like to petition God, but an even more desperate word. I think there’s some desperation behind it. And God could have wiped him out or allowed him to be wiped out.

but he says in verse 9 what profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit in other words can a dead man praise God what good am I as far as praising God and recounting the blessings that he’s done if I die shall the dust praise thee shall it declare thy truth and then he recounts as we’ve already read so I won’t go back through the last three verses a whole lot but he recounts how how God as a result of his crying out to God God changed his circumstances God had mercy on him and God continued to bless him. And we can look through David’s life and see there were sort of these ups and downs that he would go through some of the consequences of his sin and yet God would have mercy on him and God would change his circumstances. Now there were some consequences God never quite took away from him.

Told him that he wouldn’t. Said, I can’t remember the exact words, but I believe the sword would never depart from his house. God never took away that consequence, but even in the midst of that storm, God worked circumstances out very well for David because God was merciful and God blessed David.

And through this whole chapter, I’m not trying to give you a history lesson on David so much as trying to point out that David was recounting everything that God had, maybe not everything, but David was in a very general way recounting the things that God had done for him. That God had blessed David so completely. And David here doesn’t just list the good times and the happy things that he went through.

He also lists some of the suffering and some of the negative circumstances and said, you know what, God, you blessed me by being there with me in those two. And I think it’s so fortuitous, if it’s the right word, Brother Shank, that you picked some of the songs you did tonight about counting our blessings and thou fount of every blessing. When we stop to count our blessings, a lot of times we think just about the good things, and we need to be mindful of the bad times that God has walked with us through as well.

So seven things very quickly. I promise I am going to try to move through these very quickly. Seven things to be mindful of as we consider praying to give God thanks.

And I think we should go to him in thanks quite a bit more than we do. First of all, God deserves our thanks because we’re his. You notice he says in verse 4, Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his.

That he’s speaking of the saints and that’s not just, you know, the apostles and whoever else we think of this special class of people. I think the Bible is clear on the point that if we’ve been bought with a price, if we’ve been paid for, if we’ve been purchased by Him, we belong to Him and we’re among His saints. Now, we may not act like it all the time.

If somebody said, oh, you’re a saint, to me I’d say, I don’t think that word means what you think it means. But that word saint means set apart unto God. and we are set apart unto God and we’re supposed to be set apart unto God.

We’re supposed to act like we’re set apart to God. And so what he’s talking about is telling the people who belong to God and not just saints set apart unto God, but he says it even more emphatically. Saints implies that we’re his and set apart to him, but then he says saints of his.

Two different ways in there of saying you belong to him and because of that he says sing unto him. Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his. And you know what?

First of all, God deserves our thanks because we’re his. You know what? He didn’t have to redeem us.

He didn’t have to adopt us. There was some discussion on a Wednesday night a couple weeks ago about a statement that was made about Christ being God’s only son. I know what was meant by that, but I prefer the statement made in John 3.

16 that he was the only begotten son because the Bible teaches that as many as received him, to them gave he the power to be called the sons of God. God has adopted us as his children. Now, I’m not saying we’re on par with Jesus in terms of our nature, but God has adopted us as his children.

You look at the story of the prodigal son, and we’re really not even worthy to be servants in the father’s house, and yet he welcomes us in with open arms and calls us his children. That is an incredible thing. God didn’t have to do that.

God didn’t have to adopt us into his family. God didn’t have to purchase us by the blood of Christ. I’ve said so many times over the years that if God had just looked at us after Adam and Eve in the garden and said, you know what? Enjoy your sin.

I’m done with you. He would have been completely justified in letting all of us spend eternity in hell. God didn’t owe us heaven, and yet he chose to.

And if we can’t think of anything else to be thankful to God for tonight? We have that to be thankful for, that we’re His. He didn’t owe us that.

He chose to give us that. He chose to make that available. So God deserves our thanks because we’re His, because we belong to Him.

Second of all, God deserves our thanks because He’s holy. God deserves our thanks because He’s holy. Now that might sound strange on the face of it, because His holiness is part of our problem.

Not part of the problem, but part of our problem. Our sin separates us from God because He is holy. If God weren’t holy, there wouldn’t be this problem of sin.

And yet He is holy. And we can be thankful for a holy God because I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful for a God who cannot deceive. I’m thankful for a God who is not sinful and fallen like I am.

I’m thankful for a God who is dependable that I can always trust Him to point me the right direction. I may not always do it the way I should, but I know he will never steer me wrong. Even by his spirit, the Bible says, Jesus told the disciples that soon the Holy Spirit would come and the spirit of truth would guide us into all truth.

We don’t have to worry about being misled by God. We have a God who the Bible says cannot lie. We have a God who cannot sin.

A lot is said about the North Star in navigation and needing a constant. Even the North Star moves a little bit in relation to earth, but it’s about constant as you get in navigation. And we hear people talk about this is our north star.

This is our foundation. This is what doesn’t move. This is what we aim for.

This is what everything works around. You know what? That is God for us.

I’m not saying we worship any of that. That’s not what I mean. But I mean God is immovable.

God is constant. God is steady. God has not changed in the 6,000 years of human history.

He hasn’t changed before that, and he’s not going to change in the future. God is holy. God is trustworthy in that holiness.

We can take it to the bank that when God says it, that’s the way it is. And yes, that’s troublesome to fallen, sinful human beings who don’t always like absolutes, and yet it’s comforting in the same thought. And when I really get down to think about it, I’m thankful for God who is holy.

Give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. Third of all, God deserves our thanks because he’s just and merciful. And I say here just and merciful in the same breath.

I’ve told you before, we don’t want justice. Justice sounds like a good thing. I’m involved in politics, as you probably know, and we talk about candidates who pursue justice.

You know, we want that law and order man. In spiritual things, I do not want justice. If anything, I do not want what I deserve, and you shouldn’t either.

I’m thankful for a God who is just and will one day set all things to right. Because from this side of eternity, there’s a lot of injustice. There’s a lot of wrong that’s been done to me.

And I’m thinking, God, I sure do look forward to you setting that right. But in the same breath, I’m thinking, God, I’ve done a lot of wrong. And I sure don’t want what I deserve for it.

So I’m thankful for a God who’s not a respecter of persons. He says here, for his anger endureth but a moment, but in his favor is life. I’m thankful for a God who is not a respecter of persons and says, these are the rules, these are the standards, you don’t have to be confused about what they are, and they will be enforced.

But at the same time, there’s mercy. There’s mercy. Grace and mercy are slightly different, but very close to one another.

Grace is when God gives us abundantly these things that we don’t deserve. And mercy is just as wonderful where God, quite fortunately for us, doesn’t give us what we do deserve. And God’s anger is exactly what we deserve.

but his anger endures for just a moment. In his favor of his life, God offers mercy. And you know what?

Without either one, without one or the other, without both of them, he wouldn’t be the God he is. And without both, I suspect we would be in serious trouble in this world. God deserves our thanks because he’s just and merciful.

We can thank him that one day he is going to set all things to right, but that also he has mercy for us when we’ve sinned. Fourth of all, God deserves our thanks because he brings joy and comfort. It says in verse 5, Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

And I know we’ve all had those times of heartache. We have all had times where we’ve suffered and thought, I just don’t know if I can bear this anymore. Some of us were sitting around talking after Bible school one day this week, and one of the men said, you know, please don’t take it as anybody’s a heretic, just throwing ideas around and talking about them.

One of the men said, I just don’t know what we’re going to do in heaven. It just sounds really boring. I mean, it’ll be good for about the first million years, but then what are we going to do the same thing every day?

And I said, you know, and what’s funny is he’s older than me. And usually I’ve heard people, the further they go in life, are more anxious for heaven. And I said, you know, I used to think that exact same thing, that we’re just going to sit around and sing praises, which is wonderful.

I mean, it’s going to be great being with Jesus, but what are we going to do the second day? I said, but you know, after the few years that I’ve had, losing two children and the rest of the things that have happened with my family, just the idea of going someplace where there are no more tears, where nobody’s ever separated again, where we just get to be with Jesus and rest in Him forever. I don’t know about you, but that’s starting to sound really good to me.

I’m not talking about I’m ready to check out tomorrow, because I know He’s still got things for me to do. But the more I think about it and even the closer I get, I know I’m closer with each passing day. It doesn’t sound boring anymore.

It sounds wonderful. If you can get through this life and not need a rest, you haven’t done it right. And I’m thankful for a God who promises peace and comfort to his children at the end of all of this.

We are really going to need it. But I’m thankful on top of that for a God who gives us those times of joy and comfort in the meantime. We don’t have to wait for heaven for our comfort.

Now the comfort and joy in heaven will be much greater than anything we experience here. But I’m thankful for the times of rest and relief in God from the stress and the struggles and the pain of this life. That yes, there’s weeping, there’s suffering, but it endures for a night and joy comes in the morning.

Fifth of all, God deserves our thanks because he provides. Now we know this one pretty well. In my prosperity, I said I shall never be moved.

You know, where there’s prosperity, God has blessed. Even when there’s poverty, I could say God is blessed in that too. I’ve been pretty impoverished at points in my life, but God has always taken care of the needs, not always the wants.

I went and interviewed for a job one time, and the man I was interviewing with said, well, what would your salary requirements be? If you’re young and naive and dumb, I said, I don’t know. He said, well, what are you living on now?

And I told him, and he laughed at me. He said, no, really. I said, that is what I make a month.

He said, are you on food stamps? I said, no, should I be? And he laughed at me because I can’t imagine anybody living on that.

Well, you know, I did the math and it never should have worked, but God always provided. The bills were paid. There was always food on the table.

I don’t know how he did it, but he did. In our poverty and in our prosperity, God provides and God blesses. And even when I feel like I have nothing, I can still be thankful for the roof he’s given me over my head, for the food that he’s given, for the breath that I take, for every heartbeat, because it all comes from him.

Sixth of all, God deserves our thanks because he protects. David said in verse 7, Lord, by thy favor, thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. God protected David.

God made David steadfast, watched over him. As I said before, at any moment, God didn’t even have to smite David. God could have just removed his hand of blessing from David, and that would have been it.

And yet he said, you made my mountain to stand strong. And seventh of all tonight, God deserves our thanks because he hears. Because he hears.

In verse 7, he said, Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. There was a time in David’s life where he felt like God was distant. Yet he said, I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made supplication.

He cried to God, and we see in the passage from that point on, everything changed when he cried out to God. God is under no obligation to listen to us. Just like when I said God was under no obligation to adopt us into his family as his children, God is under no obligation to listen to us.

He could have said 6,000 years ago, I’m done with you all, you’re sinners, you’ve spit in my face, I’m done. And yet he hears us. When we cry out to him for mercy, he hears us.

When we cry out in fear, he hears us. When we cry out in joy, he hears us. When we cry out for whatever reason, God hears us.

I think at that point to all the people in the world in various religions, Some of us were talking about Buddhism the other day and some of the restaurants and stores we go into where they have the little statues and people, I mean, not to sell, but to bless their business, I guess. And they’ll put out little flowers for the statues in the corner of the restaurant or whatever. And you know these people are going through rituals on a daily basis to their gods and to their statues and Buddhism and Hinduism and all sorts of things, crying out to gods, to statues, to deities that aren’t really there and can’t hear them.

And I don’t say this to make light of them, but it makes me so thankful for a God who can hear us and who chooses to hear us. He doesn’t owe us that, and yet he does it anyway. And as we’re talking to God, if we have trouble coming up with things to be thankful for, why not start with the fact that he’s even listening in the first place to that prayer that we utter.

We have so many things to be thankful to God for. That just like any of these things that we’ve talked about, praying to honor God, we could make a list of all the great attributes of God and spend the rest of the rest talking about it to Him and never exhaust the list. If we start making a list of things that He’s done for us, ways that He’s blessed us, things to be thankful for, we will never exhaust the list. We won’t run out of, I’m convinced we won’t run out of things to talk to Him about. It’s a great place to start in our prayer life is going to Him in order to give thanks.

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