Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

You will, no doubt, think me strange for saying it, but I am thankful for my ignorance.

It gives me so much to be thankful for.

My vast ocean of ignorance is my playground where I can fish for new insights, and I can dive for the sunken treasure of golden truths that lay hidden in God's Word.

Paul said, "Now I know in part and I see through a glass darkly."

That is why even when he was in prison he wrote, "Bring me the books and the parchments for I must be to my dying day growing in my knowing of what God has revealed."

Paul was ever pressing on, for there is never an end to discovery in God's Word.

The continents have all been discovered.

The oceans and seas have all been discovered.

Even the planets have all been discovered.

But there will never come a day in history when it will ever be said that the exploration of God's Word has ceased, for all truth and wisdom have been discovered.

Because God is infinite, discovery is eternal, and that is one of things I am most grateful for, for I desire to make discoveries forever.

This is not to say that this should also be your desire.

The palmist David says in verse 5, "He satisfies my desires with good things."

You desires may be altogether different.

It may be torture for you to do research and seek to discover new insights.

That is okay, for God gave the body many members with a variety of gifts and interests.

What satisfies my desires may not do so for you.

It is whatever renews our youth like the eagles that satisfies our particular desires.

In other words, you are most thankful to God for those things that make you feel young and alive again.

Those things that fill you with energy and enthusiasm are the real high of thankfulness, and they are the things that renew your spirit.

What do you anticipate doing when you are free to make the choice of how you use your time?

That is a life renewing activity, and when you want to be filled with the spirit of thanksgiving think of that desire that is satisfied.

This will vary because all of us have many things in common, but we thank God for those specific desires that make you soar with the eagles.

These are the ones you need to focus on to be filled with gratitude.

This Psalm is loaded with examples that fit all of us at various times in our lives.

In verse 2 he says to his soul, "Forget not all his benefits."

We are not likely to forget those things that give us an eagle high, but there are many other things that we can forget if we do not give effort to remember them.

The poet mixes in the trivial and the tremendous to recall to our memory that we have endless reasons to be thankful.

Thank you, God, for a hundred things-

For the flower that blooms, for the bird that sings,

For the sun that shines,

And the rain that drops,

For ice cream and raisins and lollipops.

Thank you God for the gift of time-

For the clocks that tick, and the bells that chime,

For days gone by,

And future cheers,

For seasons, and moments, for hours and years.

Thanks for the people who give life pizazz-

For folks who play sports, those who act and play jazz,

For friends and for families,

For folks of all races,

For hands that give help and for bright smiling faces.

Thanks for the planet you give as our home-

For the sky with its clouds, for the oceans' white foam,

For the creatures and critters,

The lakes, falls and fountains,

For hills and for valleys, for canyons and mountains.

Thank you, God, for the gift of your Son-

For the love Jesus shared, for the battle He won

Over death, for the promise,

That He would be near

To lead and to guide and to hold us so dear.

Thank you, God, for a hundred things-

For autumn and pumpkins, for dragonfly wings,

For Thanksgiving dinners,

For seasides and shore,

For a hundred things, and a thousand things more.

Author unknown

The poet has captured the idea of this Psalm by ranging all the way from the God centered level of grace, forgiveness and salvation to the more self-centered level of personal desires.

The point is, the reasons for thanksgiving is endless.

Variety is the spice of life because God is the God of variety, and He has given so many benefits that there is no way to become overly thankful.

Whoever heard of someone say of another, "He is just too thankful, or she is a fanatic for being so grateful?"

When President George Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving in 1789 he stressed this very issue of the variety of God's blessing.

This is what he proclaimed: "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection, aid and favors....Now, therefore, I do recommend assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country, and for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us."

David begins this great praise Psalm by talking to himself.

He is giving his inner man a pep talk on praising the Lord.

It can be a good thing to talk to yourself, for the fact of life is that you are more likely to listen to what you tell yourself than to what others tell you.

The most effective form of communication is that which goes from your mind to your body.

Tell yourself to praise the Lord and you will do it.

Tell yourself not to forget the Lord's benefits and you won't.

You listen to yourself, and so we need to tell ourselves often to be thankful.

If you quit telling yourself, you will become less and less thankful.

David starts this Psalm by telling himself to praise the Lord, and he ends it by telling himself to do it again.

If we would tell ourselves as we begin the day to praise the Lord and not forget all His benefits, and if we would end the day by doing the same, we would be different people.

We would be grateful people, and grateful people are the happiest people.

David deals with major negative issues in this song of praise.

He stresses the forgiveness of all his sins, and the healing of all his diseases.

Everyone of us is here only because God did not judge us for our sins.

We have all sinned, but we are not dead because God has forgiven us in Christ.

There is not one of us who is alive who could not have died with some disease we have had.

If we had the time to compile the list, we would be able to reveal an amazing example of the providence of God right in this room.

There are many disease that some of us have had that have killed others, but we are still alive.

We have been redeemed from the pit of death by the grace of God.

Everyday we live we can thank God for the gift of life.

Spiritual and physical healing are the two major themes of David's gratitude.

In the midst of these gigantic reasons for being thankful he slips in a sort of generic reason in verse 5.

He says, "He satisfies my desires with good things."

The terms here-desires and good things-are very general.

They cover all the varied things that each of us may be thankful for that mean little or nothing to others.

Each of our unique and trivial reasons to be grateful are covered by the Hebrew word used here.

The word is adi, and it refers to any desirable thing.

It is most often used in the Bible to refer to ornaments.

For example, in Jer.

2:32 we read, "Does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments?"

Ornaments is the same word David uses here for desires.

A bride loves her accessories that beautify her and make her feel good about herself.

They are the basis for a thankful heart, even though they may seem trivial to us.

This word refers 11 times to the ornaments of both men and women.