The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed who God i the Lord… We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us…It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. -Abraham Lincoln Call for National Day of Prayer and Fasting March 30, 1863

Where is Abraham Lincoln when you need him? Oh that’s right, he was assassinated by a Hollywood democrat. That’s a fact. John Wilkes Boothe was a rising theatrical star, and a democrat. If that bothers you, that’s OK, you can still get saved.

But let’s move beyond all that to the point President Lincoln was making. What kind of ungrateful nation can forget the God who has given us all the abundance that we have? If you have never been outside of America, then you might not have the reference points that you need to be able to truly appreciate how blessed we are. I hope to help you adjust your thinking.

ALL HIS BENEFITS

We are truly a blessed people.

David speaks of all his benefits. There is no way we can even count or comprehend all his benefits.

This is primarily because our perspectives are skewed. We actually think that we know what’s best for us.

Think for just a moment about how many things you have obtained that you were sure was going to make you happy, and you are still unhappy. Iphone…new house…husband/wife…new job…college degree...

(And unhappy is a matter of degrees. Perhaps I should say that these “things” were not the be all, end all of your desires that you expected them to be.)

The truth of the matter is any and all of these things only maintain their sheen, their satisfaction quota, their happy producing magic, in proportion to your gratitude for them. As long as you are thankful for them they supply a certain kind of joy, an element of contentment.

But as soon as your gratitude starts to wain, they lose their appeal. I used to think it was the other way around. As they lost their newness and their novelty, we became less grateful. But I have learned that it is the other way around.

As long as we are grateful for our spouse, we are drawn to them. As long as we are grateful to have a job, our job is not odious. As long as we are grateful for that new house, we are happy to come home to it.

But let that gratitude slip and whatever it is we are talking about is no longer a blessing!!

And let’s backtrack to thinking we know what is best for us, what will make us happy. We never understand what a blessing something we deem negative can actually be.

A hardship, a disease, a heartbreak…all sorts of things we would not want in our lives have turned out to be blessings in disguise. We have benefitted by some loss, some struggle, some failure.

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good...That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!”...and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” -Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Look at this psalm. It is clear that it came out of a difficult period for the author. The pains of death surrounded me! The pangs of Hell!! I found trouble and sorrow!! I was brought low!

Our text: V.15  Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His saints.

That’s an unexpected statement!! But it simply shows how myopic we are when we start to count blessings. Things that would never make the list should be right at the top!

300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church Thanksgiving Can Turn Anything into a Blessing

If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness, and all perfection, he must tell you to make a rule to yourself, to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.

WILLIAM LAW

TOWARDS ME

And let’s make it personal while we’re at it. It’s one thing to come to church and listen to a sermon preached to a congregation in general. It is another thing to bring it home to your own heart.

Wesley Ferguson says in his commentary What the Bible Teaches:

It must be remembered, however, that the Psalm is a continuation of the Hallel, celebrating particularly the redemption of Israel out of Egypt. Since this is so, it would have been sung congregationally, during the Feast of the Passover...

But in that context the author says: Psalm 116 is the personal thanksgiving song of one who has been delivered from some severe sickness or danger, and from death itself. The song is the Psalmist's intermingling of love and praise and vows, and promises of thanksgiving to Him who has heard and delivered him.

In other words, as much as this truth applies to us all, it only means something if I apply it to ME!!! I have to personally think of all His benefits “TOWARDS ME”. Towards us is great. Towards ME connects with the heart and only then does the profound question of the text become real.

WHAT CAN I GIVE TO GOD

A Heart Question

You see, this question is a heart question. It is the kind of question that only rises in a heart that has a personal revelation of the love and sacrifice TOWARD ME that is represented in the many blessings, ALL HIS BENEFITS!

What can I give [return] to the Lord? How can I repay God for all He has done for me?

Has this question never percolated in your mind? Of course it has because it is the natural result of the recognition that someone, in this case God, has done remarkable things for you.

Bobby Dylan wrote a great song before he backslid!! ‘You have given me everything…what can I do for you?”

Unfortunately, in keeping with Abraham Lincoln’s observation, he forgot God’s gracious hand. Or maybe he hasn’t. Pray for Bobby. But that song rose from the same heart that the Psalmist gives voice to.

What can I give to God for all He has given me?

A Ridiculous Question

It is an admittedly ridiculous question. What could we possibly give to God? What could He possibly want that we have that He doesn’t? He made it all!! He made us! It’s all His, lock, stock, and barrel!

How could we ever repay for oxygen and the lungs to breathe it? I was talking to Alex and he was describing his battle with double pneumonia that almost killed him. He told the nurses not to put him on a ventilator and he almost died. But God came through for him…and he knows it!! And oxygen never felt so good as when the smothering sense of dying lifted and according to him, by God’s grace he could breathe again!

We don’t think about every breath. In fact, if you try to, breathing gets weird! But it’s a benefit you receive from God 20,000 times a day!

How could we ever repay God for just the right amount of sunshine and gravity and the speed of the earth’s rotation and seeds and rain and harvest (which is what Thanksgiving is about and the starving pilgrims who enjoyed their first harvest were truly deeply “what can I do for you” thankful to God for His provision) and a paycheck and a car or a bus and a family and friends and a church and REDEMPTION that is so completely over the top expensive and wholly undeserved!!

How could we possibly repay God?

Psalm 50:10–12 NKJV

For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, And the wild beasts of the field are Mine. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.

It is an absurd question…an impossible question, but one that must be asked by the very nature of all our benefits. Can one really know God’s amazing grace and be truly saved without this question on his heart?

THE SACRIFICE

The Cup of Salvation

And so, the inevitable question gives rise to the only thing that we can give to God in response to His blessings and mercies and benefits and experiences and trials and deliverances that He has given us.

Psalm 116:17 NKJV

I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, And will call upon the name of the Lord.

The sacrifice of thanksgiving is more than just “Thanks God”. It is deeper. It is more defining.

This could certainly be a reference to the Levitical thank offering.

Leviticus 7:11–12 NKJV

‘This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings which he shall offer to the Lord: If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, or cakes of blended flour mixed with oil.

Remember this is part of Hallel, the passover feast. It could be a reference to the even more germane passover lamb.

But I believe it is more transcendent than that. It is not a reference to a ritual and neither the thank offering nor the passover lamb technically fit the language of the psalmist.

The cup of salvation might sound like part of the passover, especially looking backwards from the NT when Jesus drank the cup at that passover meal, but that was a much later development. The celebration of the passover had no mention of a cup in it.

So his reference to the cup of salvation is not a Levitical reference. It is not mentioned in the proscribed Thank offering as we have seen, and wine is only mentioned in Leviticus in association with the grain offering. So where does this notion, “I will lift [take] up the cup of salvation” come from?

What can I render, give, return to the Lord?

The cup of salvation is the clue. The only thing I can give to God is what He has given me, the blood of Jesus!

Hebrews 10:19–22 NKJV

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

I will call upon the Lord!!! v.13 & 17 That is personal/relational. I will seek Him out.

This is relational, not ritual. This is the sacrifice of thanksgiving: the adoration of and the overwhelming gratitude for the blood of the lamb.

This Psalm starts with “I love the Lord”. Remarkably this is the only place in the Bible where we find this phrase. Certainly loving God as an idea is found throughout the Bible, but this psalm of Thanksgiving is the only place we find the phrase on anyone’s lips.

Again, think of the personal nature of the Psalm. It is sung congregationally, but it is experienced personally. It moves from coming to church to coming to Him! It moves from the collective to the individual.

We can give God thanks and praise corporately, and that is good and that is pleasing to God. But your personal heart, blood bought, blood washed, calling upon God even while all around you are calling on God is your personal gift/sacrifice to the Lord. It is what you bring to Him with your own two hands so to speak.

Psalm 69:30–31 NKJV

I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bull, Which has horns and hooves.

Even this idea “I will pay my vows”…this was a little odd to me in this context, but again, if we are thinking about relationship, we are talking about clearing away anything that might be between me and God. Any outstanding issue that I have left unaddressed, any debt unpaid. Certainly it refers to offerings but again I think the reason it is on the Psalmists mind is that he doesn’t want anything outstanding to flatten his praise. The last thing he wants to do is come to God saying how much he loves Him while he’s holding out on Him.

At the end of it all, the overarching intent is clear. I may not be getting all the details just right, but this psalm is the product of a grateful heart that is desperate to demonstrate that the gratitude is not casual or half-hearted or in any way feigned or phony. It is more than lip service. More than religious calisthenics. It is the genuine heartfelt reality, the enduring reality, that I can’t thank Him enough! Ask yourself the question: What can I give to the Lord for all He’s done for me?