Thankful for His Steadfast Love

Turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 107.

Intro

Can you remember a time when you just didn’t feel very thankful? I certainly can. May 2018-May 2019 was the deepest, darkest depression that I’ve ever been through. It was a year after Jennifer’s medevac from PNG to Australia. She had contracted a terrible illness in PNG and had gone into sepsis and nearly died. To say it was a traumatic experience for our family would be a gross understatement!

Well, exactly one year after that, I began having flashbacks to that event. Those flashbacks triggered a depression that lasted about a year. It was a deep, dark depression that I couldn’t seem to climb out of. I pushed away my friends, I pushed away God, I don’t think I read my Bible except maybe a handful of times that year, and only then as a desperate last resort. I put on a happy face and kept pushing along in our ministry, but I was dead inside. Thanksgiving came and went, but ‘thankful’ is hardly the word I would use to describe myself.

I remember feeling like God was “out to get me” and make my life as miserable as possible. The fact is that God was pouring out blessings on top of blessings in our lives, but it was as if I had spiritual blinders on—I couldn’t see them. All I could see was my problems and troubles. Deep down, I knew that my perspective on God and my life was wrong, but I couldn’t seem to fix it.

Some of you here today have been through similar trials in life. Maybe this Thanksgiving, you’re not feeling too thankful. Deep down you know that you ought to be thankful, but you just can’t make yourself feel it.

FCF: When the trials of life come, it’s easy to become bitter, depressed, and even angry with God. Sometimes thanksgiving doesn’t come easy. You can’t just conjure up thankfulness from an unthankful heart. But Psalm 107 reminds us that true thankfulness comes only when we redirect our focus onto the goodness of God.

Main Point (vv. 1-3): When we refocus our perspective and call to mind God’s faithful, steadfast, never-changing love, our hearts will spontaneously overflow with Thanksgiving.

Passage Intro:

God’s ‘steadfast love’ is the theme of this passage.

Comes from the Hebrew word chesed, which the ESV renders as ‘steadfast love’ throughout this passage

It’s hard to translate into English and has a range of meanings: love, faithfulness, goodness, mercy, and more. We don’t have a good English word for it, but it clearly has ‘love’ as part of its basic meaning.

For those following along in the KJV, it’s translated as follows:

in v. 1 as ‘mercy’

in v. 8, 15, 21, and 31 as ‘goodness’

in v. 43 as ‘lovingkindness’

The ESV translates it consistently throughout Ps. 107 as ‘steadfast love,’ which I think is a good translation of the word. I’ll be using the ESV so that you can see where this term is used.

Read Psalm 107

Prayer for illumination

The Lord gives us a home (vv. 4-9)

Physically

Think of the exiles wandering in the desert, perhaps on the way to Babylon or Egypt

They were hungry, thirsty, weary, and homeless.

God provided for their needs.

May also allude to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus.

God provided manna for them, water from the rock, etc.

This morning as we prepare for Thanksgiving, reflect on how God has provided for your needs!

Have you gone hungry for lack of food?

Are you without shelter?

Spiritually

But he doesn’t stop with just our physical needs--God satisfies our souls, too!

Each of us is born with a deep need for love and a feeling of significance.

The Creator of the Universe loves you

He wants to satisfy your deepest needs

We’ve seen in John that Jesus is the ‘living water’ for the thirsty, and the ‘bread of life’ for the hungry. He’s the ‘light of man’ so that we can see in the darkness.

The Lord rescues us out of captivity (vv. 10-16)

Physically

God’s people rebelled against him and found themselves in captivity—in literal chains and irons.

But even though they had rebelled, God delivered them!

Some of our brothers and sisters around the world suffer persecution and imprisonment for Christ. It’s amazing to hear of how God provides for them in such dire circumstances

Story of Brady and Aubry (missionaries) and how God rescued Brady from prison in Oman.

Spiritually

But God doesn’t just rescue us from physical chains—he breaks the chains of sin that hold us!

We were prisoners of Satan—languishing in a prison far worse than any physical prison—all because of our own sins and rebellion, and yet God rescued us!

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Lord spares us from our own foolishness (vv. 17-22)

Physically

God’s people suffered many kinds of afflictions brought about by their sins. Lamentations tells of people starving in the siege of Jerusalem.

Yet God redeemed them when they repented. He restored them.

How many times have you suffered because of your own foolishness?

Financially?

Physically?

And yet, God doesn’t just leave you alone to suffer the consequences of your foolishness.

Spiritually

He spares us from both the physical and the spiritual consequences of our own folly.

How amazing is it, that even when we sin and turn our back on God, all we have to do is pray and repent and he hears our prayers again? No penance to do. No ‘making it right.’ No ‘get your act together first and then I’ll help you.’

The Lord displays his awesome saving power in our lives (vv. 23-32)

Physically

Perhaps some of the exiles were sent to work on trading ships and saw some tremendous storms at sea.

Yet God rescued them when they cried out to them!

Have you witnessed God’s power on display? What a blessing!

I’ll never forget the time I witnessed an elderly woman healed from a double brain aneurism through prayer!

Spiritually

vv. 29-30 find their ultimate fulfillment in Christ. He literally calmed the sea and ‘brought them to their desired haven’ in John 6

But he also displays his wondrous works and saving power in our lives.

The Lord is righteous and sovereign (vv. 33-42)

He exalts the humble and oppressed

When his people suffer, God provides

He makes abundance in the middle of the desert—he provides when there seems to be no way for provision!

He humbles the arrogant and oppressive

We’ve already seen in 1 Peter 2 how God is sovereign over human governments, and that theme appears here in Ps. 107 as well.

When wicked, evil rulers take power, they don’t hold it forever. God humbles them and executes judgment upon them.

Those who have abundance and use that abundance to oppress people will be judged and brought low.

Praise God that he is just!

Conclusion (v.43): Meditate on God’s steadfast love and give him the praise and thanksgiving he deserves.

Conclude with prayer of Thanksgiving.