Psalm 103:1-5 * Thanksgiving 2003 *
Pastor Leyrer
Dear Friends in Christ,
The national-slash-religious holiday of Thanksgiving means different things to different people. For the agnostic or the atheist it presents a bit of a conundrum. Although they recognize their blessings, who are they supposed to thank?
Christians don’t have that problem. We know exactly who to thank. In the beloved words of the hymn we call the
common doxology, we “praise God from whom all blessings flow.”
For us the question is not the who, but the what. The essential question which confronts us each Thanksgiving is this: What are we thankful for? Thoughtfully answering that question opens up all kinds of avenues for discussion and reflection and takes us down a path that has nothing to do with physical or material blessings, which is the initial reason for thanksgiving that often pops into our heads.
If we look through the pages of Scripture we find that some of the greatest reasons for and expressions of thanksgiving coincide with some pretty bleak outward circumstances. Let me give you just a couple of examples…
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah lived through an
extremely dark period in the history of God’s people. He was there in 586 BC when the city of
Yet in the middle of the book of Lamentations (traditionally
ascribed to Jeremiah) – at a time of desolation when every sip of fresh water
and every crust of bread took on epic proportions for the matter of mere
survival – is this proclamation of thanksgiving and praise: “Because
of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never
fail. They are new every morning; great
is your faithfulness.”
Moving to the New Testament we turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It has been called the Epistle of Joy. There is tone of thanksgiving and praise and rejoicing and confidence in God’s goodness in Christ throughout its four chapters. We might expect that such an emotionally elevated letter would spring from equally elevated circumstances. But that was not the case. Paul wrote this letter of thanksgiving and praise while he was in prison, awaiting word on whether he would live or die.
The point made by both Jeremiah and Paul is that the believer’s reason for thanksgiving goes far deeper than (and is not at all dependent upon) outward circumstances. Certainly God gives us many earthly blessings, but the greatest blessings God provides to us are spiritual in nature.
This is precisely what King David spells out for us in our text. In contrast to Jeremiah and Paul, King David was sitting upon a heap of physical and earthly blessings. He was wealthy and powerful and talented and internationally respected.
But when it comes time for him to praise God for the things that mattered most in his life, worldly things are mentioned only in a marginal way. What mattered to King David fell squarely along the lines of spiritual blessings. And as we look at his reasons for thanksgiving, we can rejoice and thank God because everything he says applies to us as well. So today, gathered here with grateful hearts, let us consider how
KING DAVID COUNTS OUR
BLESSINGS
Our text begins with this exclamation by David: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” That sets the tone for what is to follow. We must praise God for His benefits to us. Not must in the sense of “do it or else,” but must in the sense that there can really be no other option for the person who has truly thought these things through. And what follows is a list of five benefits in particular that we ought not ever forget…
Benefit #1: He forgives all my sins. It is highly significant that this is positioned at the top of the list. In order of importance, David ranks this as first. And its place is well deserved, because the forgiveness of sins is God’s greatest benefit to us, and our greatest benefit as Children of God.
Why can we make such a statement? Because without the forgiveness of sins we’d all be doomed to an eternity in hell. Without it, we’d still be in our sins and the moment we closed our eyes in death we would not, as the fairy tales end, “live happily ever after.” No, sin puts us at odds with a holy God who created us and demands a sinless life from His creatures…
But the good news is that with God there is FORGIVENESS. A little later on in this Psalm David expands on these words: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Without a doubt, the forgiveness of sins is our greatest blessing – and our greatest reason for thanksgiving. The forgiveness of sins means we are saved for all eternity.
Let us remember, however, that this forgiveness was not without cost. When it comes to forgiving our sin, God did not simply look the other way, or wink His eye at it, or shrug it off because He didn’t feel like dealing with it. No. He did deal with it. And there was a high price involved. The cost, as we know and for which we cannot help but be eternally thankful, was the substitutionary life and death of His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. His perfect life is credited to our account. His sacrificial death erases our sin. His resurrection sealed the deal. We believe – and stand forgiven in His sight; heirs of eternal life…
That’s why this blessing is at the top of the list. Every other blessing God bestows upon us is secondary to this one. Even if we were completely destitute (which none of us are)… even if we were completely without those things the world considers blessings (which, again, none of us are)… we’d still be immeasurably “blessed” because we know Jesus Christ and the forgiveness He provides…
But there’s more. Much more.
Benefit #2: He heals all my diseases. The fact that God is capable of healing cannot be questioned. The Gospels alone are full of the healing miracles of Jesus. We heard one such account in our Gospel lesson for today. Nevertheless, disease and sickness are the results and reminders that we live in a fallen world, and, as such, God allows them to come upon His children as well as the rest of the world.
Yet it is our great comfort to know that this same all powerful, miracle working God is watching over us and directing our lives for our highest good, no matter how we may perceive our given situation in life. In view of this we know that if and when we are healed of our various infirmities, it is done by the hand of God. On the other hand, if we are not healed, or if the Lord presents us with a situation we simply have to live with until we reach glory, we take hope in the sure promise that the best is yet to come. Heaven will be our final deliverance.
Despite all this (and if we may indulge in spiritualizing this particular “benefit”), the number one disease infecting every human being’s life is the malady of sin. And from that we have been healed wholly and completely by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Benefit #3: He redeems my life from the pit. There are two words to key in on. The first is “redeem,” which means to “buy back.” The second is “the pit,” which to the Old Testament believer was a far ranging word that meant misery, the grave, death or hell. Consequently, when David praises God for redeeming his life from the pit we have another reference to the greatest benefit God gives us – our rescue from hell.
The fact that David is essentially finding different ways to express the same idea – that God forgives us, spiritually heals us, and saves us eternally – underscores once again that which matters most to the believer. Our greatest blessings are spiritual in nature.
Benefit #4: He crowns me with love and compassion. Again, let’s look at the words. He “crowns me” would seem to be terminology reserved for royalty; after all only kings and queens have crowns placed on their heads. So we might say that God in His grace treats us like royalty – like something special – because we are something special; we are His children. And since He is the King of the Universe, that makes us, in the words of the Easter hymn, “sons and daughters of the King.” Which is a pretty nice position to be in. Even if we don’t feel particularly regal, the fact of the matter is we are nothing less than royalty…
And what is it that He bestows upon us (or “crowns” us with) that shows we are
something special to Him? “His love and compassion.” “His love” which is the source and
provision for all our spiritual and physical needs, and “his compassion,” which moves Him to meet our every need each and
every day. This is the same thing
Jeremiah spoke about in our opening thoughts:
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions
never fail. They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.”
Think seriously about that for a moment. To be on the receiving end of God’s love and compassion each and every day… Does it, can it, get any better than that? Is it possible to be more blessed than we are?
Benefit #5: He satisfies my desires with good things so that my youth is renewed like the eagles. David completes his list of benefits with a poetic general statement. God simply gives us good things. And these good things renew us and invigorate us…
Spiritually, He has given us Word and Sacrament. We can drink deeply from the water of life it contains and be satisfied. We can feed our souls with the rich spiritual food it sets before us be filled. The Word of God is our anchor through the storms of life and our solid foundation through its peaks and valleys. Knowing, reading and meditating upon God’s Word is a deeply satisfying “good thing” which provides for our deepest spiritual and emotional needs…
And of course He meets our physical needs as well. The blessings we enjoy because we live in the
All of which leads us back to the first words of our text…
As we count our blessings… as we remember once again that the things which matter most lie outside the realm of the physical and firmly within the camp of the spiritual… as we look at what is ours through knowing God and believing in His Son, Jesus Christ… about all we can do is stand in awe, marvel at God’s grace – and echo the words of David: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul – and forget not all his benefits…” Amen.