Sermon Tone Analysis
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BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE
A chaplain of some prison trustees once came to his group and announced that he was going on a six week trip to Europe.
He had been a faithful servant to them for years, and they appreciated him a great deal.
They began to slap him on the back as they expressed their congratulations, and they gave him big hugs.
When the service of that day was over the leader came to the chaplain with a big box.
He said, "We can't give you much, but we want you to have this, and asked that you not open it until you get home."
He was so touched, he could not wait to get home and share with his wife what had happened.
It was an exciting moment as he pulled the top of that box back, and there he saw his own billfold, his own tie clasp, his own pen, and his own watch.
In embracing him they had stripped him of every loose possession he had, and this is what they gave him back.
They had nothing to give him that was not already his.
So it is with us and God.
The poet was right who said,
"We give thee but thine own dear Lord,
Whatever the gift may be.
All that we have is thine alone,
A trust O Lord from Thee."
If all we are and all we have is a gift from God, then the best we can do is to give back to God what is already his.
But this leads to a problem.
The problem is, it seems like much ado about nothing.
Our giving to God is like giving a thimble of water to the ocean, or like giving a candle to the Sun.
It seems so insignificant that we tend to lose the thrill of Thanksgiving.
Sir Michael Costa, a famous composer and conductor from Naples, was once rehearsing with a vast array of instruments and hundreds of voices.
With the thunder of the organ, the roll of the drums, the sounding of the horns, and the clashing of the cymbals, the mighty chorus rang out.
You can understand the mood that came over the piccolo player who said within himself, "In all this din it matters not what I do!"
So he ceased to play.
Suddenly, Costa stopped and flung up his arms, and all was still.
He shouted out, "Where is the piccolo?"
His sensitive ear missed it, and it's absence made a difference to him.
God has a sensitive ear as well, and he misses any voice that is not lifted in Thanksgiving to Him.
Besides the angelic host of heaven, millions on earth join the chorus with all sorts of spectacular things to thank God for, and it is easy for us to feel like that piccolo player and say, "How can it matter what I do?
In the colossal symphony of voices, what does it matter if I remain silent?
God's blessings are more than I can count, but my ability to express my thanks is so inadequate."
Simon Greenberg expresses the frustration of the thankful heart as he deals with the gifts of God just in nature alone:
"Five thousand breathless dawns all new;
Five thousand flowers fresh in dew;
Five thousand sunsets wrapped in gold;
One million snowflakes served ice cold;
Five quiet friends, one baby's love;
One white mad sea with clouds above;
One hundred music--haunted dreams,
Of moon--drenched roads and hurrying
streams,
Of prophesying winds, and trees,
Of silent stars and browsing bees;
One June night in a fragrant wood;
One heart that loved and understood.
I wondered when I waked that day,
How--how in God's name--I could pay!"
He never even got into the greatest gifts--the gifts of love and salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ.
We can't even pay for the gifts of natural life let alone for the gifts of eternal life.
So let's face up to the reality that Thanksgiving is not a way to pay God back.
All we can give is what is already His, and we can only give a fraction in return for the fullness He has given us.
So forget the idea that thanks is to pay.
It is not to pay, it is to pray, and to say to God, this is how I look at life, history, nature, and all that is, because I acknowledge you as my God.
Thanksgiving is the expression of an attitude, or a philosophy of life.
The thankful person is a person who looks at life from a unique perspective, and, therefore, sees what the ungrateful do not see.
At best we see only a part, a mere fraction of God's grace.
We see through a glass darkly Paul says, and so none of us can be as thankful as we ought to be, for we are all ignorant of so much that God has spared us from, and even of what He has given us.
We can get tiresome and superficial when we try to enumerate all the things for which we are thankful.
One author describes the boredom of going through and endless litany of thanks:
"For sun and moon and stars,
We thank Thee, O Lord.
For food and fun and fellowship,
We thank Thee, O Lord.
For fish and frogs and fruit flies,
We thank Thee, O Lord."
By the time you are finished, what you are most thankful for is that the list is over.
David here in Psalm 30 does not give us a long list, but focuses on just a few ways of looking at life that expresses the grateful heart.
I hear him saying here, thank God for the past; thank God for the present, and thank God for the permanent.
I. THANK GOD FOR THE PAST.
David looks back and recognizes that had God not loved him, led him, and lifted him, he would have been long gone, and a part of the population of the pit.
The only reason any of us are sitting here, and not lying in a cemetery is because of the grace and providence of God.
There have been millions of people just our age who have gone into the grave because of war, accidents, or disease, but we are alive, and not because we are more worthy, but because we have been spared.
David knew he was alive for that same reason, and he says in verse 3, "O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit."
Life has its burdens and sorrows, and sometimes we even get depressed enough to want to chuck the whole thing.
David knew these dark depths as well, but most of the time we feel like David does here, and like the modern poet who wrote,
"Thank God I'm alive!
That the skies are blue,
That a new day dawns
For me and you.
The sun light glistens
On field and on tree,
And the house wren sings
To his mate and to me.
The whole world glows
With a heavenly glee!
I know there are heart--aches,
A world full of strife,
But thank God, O thank God,
Thank God just for life."
We could not say that or feel that unless we could look back to the past and see how God has spared us and protected us to this point.
David saw many a good man go down in battle.
Israel was a winner, but even the winners lose men, and often a great many men.
Some of you have no doubt survived wars.
Some of us could have been killed in the wars of our nation, as many thousands were.
We were spared, and we got the chance to live, to marry, to raise children, and to have grandchildren.
We have been granted the gift to be a part of history, and not because we are more worthy, but because of the grace of God.
It is good for us to reflect on this, for it can help us to develop a more thankful perspective.
So often we forget the enormous privilege it is just to be alive, that we become resentful and even bitter because we are only among the riches people of the world, and not literally the richest people around.
The curse of comparative thinking takes its toll on all of us at come point in life.
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