A Life Lived in Thankfulness to God

Scripture Reading and Sermon Introduction

Please stand in honor of God's Word. The Old Testament reading this morning is in Jonah chapter 2. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish saying I called out to the Lord out of my distress.

And he answered me out of the belly of Sheol. I cried and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep into the heart of the seas and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.

Then I said I am driven away from your sight. Yet shall I look again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed over in Over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains.

I Went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever yet. You brought my life from the pit Oh Lord my God. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But with the voice of Thanksgiving, I will sacrifice to you what I have vowed. I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord and The Lord spoke to the fish and vomited Jonah out upon dry land.

New Testament reading this morning is Romans 11 33 through 36 and then the following chapter Romans 12 1 through 2. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways?

For who has known the mind of the Lord or who hasn't or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him and that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever.

Amen. I Appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship do not be conformed to his to this world.

But be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern What is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect? You may be seated. Good morning.

Open your Bibles to Psalm 50, please.

To the 50th Psalm. Psalm 50.

A.

Psalm of Asaph the mighty one God the Lord speaks and summons the earth. From the rising of the Sun to its setting out of Zion the perfection of beauty God shines forth. Our God comes. He does not keep silence.

Before him is a devouring fire around him a mighty storm. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people. Gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

The heavens declare his righteousness for God himself is judge. Salem. Here all my people and I will speak. Oh Israel. I will testify against you. I am God your God. Not for your sacrifices. Do I rebuke you your burnt offerings are continually before me?

I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds for every beast of the forest is mine. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world and its fullness is mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of Thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble. And I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.

But to the wicked God says what right have you to recite my statutes? Or take my covenant on your lips for you hate discipline and you cast my words behind you if you see a thief. You are pleased with him and you keep the company a company with adulterers.

You give your mouth free reign for evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son. These things you have done and I've been silent. You thought that I was one like yourself.

But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. Mark this then you who forget God lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver. The one who offers Thanksgiving as a sacrifice glorifies me to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God.

God's Power Revealed in Creation, Wrath, and Salvation

Oh God in heaven. As we talked about last week and as we're looking at this week. How important it is for our hearts to be full of gratitude of Thanksgiving Lord? It is very much a foundational thing that we must establish before we can do anything God that you Enjoy God in heaven our hearts must be full of gratitude because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

The sacrifice that he has enabled for us to be near to you. This Reality needs to shake us each day of our lives. It cannot be a truth that we remember at one time Professing and then forgetting but rather the truth of Jesus Christ of him Sacrificed and and given to us for our righteousness.

It needs to produce in us a gratitude of Thanksgiving that place itself out in proper worship. So I pray God that as yet last week we celebrated justification by faith alone and the power of salvation therein.

We would now see that it places itself out in our sanctification in our worship. This gratitude that you have done this great work for us and may its result Lord in a further Celebration in our own hearts, or I know me personally and those before me.

We Struggle with hearts of gratitude. So let it found find its center in Jesus Christ and him crucified. And may that be the word preached today and may our hearts and minds and ears be open to it in Jesus name.

Amen. So last week we started the sermon with How man if you remember how man loves displays of power and how we? There's just something in us in which we love to see power displayed and to see it before us and we I attached it To how God has made us.

It's really rooted in being made by God to behold his power right in creation wrath and salvation. We were meant to look at the power revealed in those things and marvel. That's how we started last week's sermon and this week.

I want to detail how when we are given power. Right when we are given power from an outside source. We typically have a great desire to use it, right? So not only do we have a great love and joy of displaying powers Revealed, but we also when we are given power.

We have this great desire within us to use this power that reminds me of yesterday was a very important and Good day for the BB household for for me in particular and in 2020 well that is because we we lost power and I got to use my generator and See that's important for me because in 2020 when everything was kind of going chaotic, you know, that was quite the year.

And it looked like the world was probably gonna end pretty soon. I didn't want to overreact but I also didn't like the idea that if I lost power for too long I wouldn't be able to flush my toilet too long, you know being on a well.

You need electricity to get that sucker up, you know from the city. I wasn't used to that. You always had water but in the country you got to have electricity so I wanted a Generator that in case if certain people get too crazy I could have power for a little bit and so we got one on a good deal in which We could run most of the house if not all the house if our power goes out and so I got it all excited.

I you know got it hooked up to our to our propane tank. That's the size of a football field, you know, and so it can last forever and I just needed the power to go out. So I could use the thing, you know, it's like man just totally love my thumbs.

It's just I wanted to go out and so when it went out yesterday, I got pretty excited. But it uses fuel and I can't waste fuel. I'm like, okay, we can just it comes back on a little bit. I don't need to use it.

So just calm down. Don't pull it out yet. And I and I told myself and went out around 2 and I said if it's still out by the time Sarah needs to start making dinner. Then I will fire it on so I'm waiting, you know five o 'clock.

She starts making dinner like come on and it was supposed to come on at five. So, you know, I was a little worried it would come on prior but five o 'clock comes around and it gets pushed to 8 p .m. I was like, alright, so I fire it up and it was a good time.

I loved it. I loved having that power to be able to bring it on and have the whole house run. While Sarah's making dinner and everything it's just great having that power at my hands to dispose it as I will.

Unfortunately, the fun had to end and the power came on around an hour later, but nevertheless it was a good day for us. Well, there's something about when we have power when we have the ability. We we are there's something in us that we want to use it.

We want to display it. We want to display it ourselves and for those of you who believe in Christ Jesus the power of God for salvation has been given to you. Remember we talked about that that we that God reveals his power to save in Jesus that he would justify you and Make you righteous based off of Jesus's righteousness and his work on the cross and so for those who you believe in Jesus the power of God for a salvation has been Revealed to you and given to you as a gift because of the work of Jesus.

Justification by Faith Alone and the Law

And we talked a lot about to look at that Romans 3 if you remember remember Romans 3 21 through 28. We talked a lot about how Romans 1 going into 3 how we are saved by grace through faith alone. Right.

It is from faith for faith. And what is the what is this faith looking at that would that would forgive a sinner like I well we saw that it's because Jesus is that powerful right and we saw that in Romans 3 right in which Jesus has died for Sinners right that his work has accomplished your righteousness and the power that's behind that and so Salvation is all an act of God's power to make you right with him based off of the power of Jesus not based off of your.

Works.

Not based off your ability to keep the law. But rather is a power displayed for you to behold and also to receive as a gift. But it's very interesting that Paul ends chapter 3 by this statement in verse 31 of Romans.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? Do we then disregard the law and say well, I'm not saved by the law. It's not saved by keeping the works of the law so I can just do away with it. It doesn't matter.

By the way, that's exactly what Paul was accused of with this salvation by grace through faith alone stuff. So he says no, that's not the case at all by no means on the contrary. We are the ones who are actually actually able to uphold the law because of this free grace.

So we can see that we have passively received this power of salvation and with this powerful gift received you need to have a great desire for it to display itself in upholding the works of the law or revealing the power of God in salvation that he would change you and able to keep the law for Salvation to save you and then you would be one in which you lovingly and willingly and want to obey God and salvation.

With this powerful gift received you need to have a great desire bigger than anything else to use it to display it. We see in Revelation 19 this display to Revelation 19 6 through 8. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude like the roar of many waters.

Like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out hallelujah. For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

It was granted to her to her to clothe herself with fine linen bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. So you see we have been made ready by the lamb, right? It was granted to the church to be made ready by the work of Jesus Christ to give us pure clothes.

That he has given to us by his bloody clothes. And we see that the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. So it plays itself out in our righteous deeds because of what God has done in salvation.

So again the whole purpose of God revealing The power of God in salvation and justifying you declaring you righteous. Is that then you would reveal this power in the way that you live from then on in sanctification.

The power of God is revealed in justification to declare you righteous so that you would show his power in your sanctified life. In your holy living and your upholding of the law because of what he has done for you in free grace.

Sanctification as the Display of God's Power

You see when we have i've been given such power by God. And being made righteous by a gift. It should be everything within us as Christians to say and now I want to show that. I want to show the power of this to the world in my holy living in my sanctification.

So the million dollar question for us then after we talked about justification as we're talking about the power of God in Sanctification is how do I use this powerful gift of salvation? How do I do that?

A lie we fall into is God needs my works and so I must rely upon my power to now work. It's just like the power or the lie of satan that you can be right with God by your own work. And that lie continues even for the Christian to battle that now that I've been made right by his work I then show God's power by my own work.

I rely upon my own abilities. It's a similar lie. The truth is Just as your justification is the display of God's power to save. Just as justification is a display of God's power to save not man. So your progressive sanctification Is the display of God's power to save as well.

The justification the one-time act when God declares you to be righteous. And the progressive sanctification in your life thereafter in which you now live a life Devoted to God and you as you grow in the identity of Jesus.

So just as your justification is the display of God's power to save. So your progressive sanctification is a display of God's power to save as well. The former the justification is a passive gift for you to receive as we talked about last week.

The latter the progressive sanctification is something you actively do. You need to be hard at work in your sanctification. Not by your own power though, are you hard at work as if God needs it. But with a heart full of gratitude for the gift received.

We must understand that your ability to live a sanctified life comes by the spirit as you are grateful as you are thankful. For what has been done for you at justification. If your life lived for the Lord is not in Gratitude and thankfulness for what the power of God's in salvation and justification has done for you.

Then you can be sure that you are living a life without a proper foundation and it is not Something that God does not desire. Indeed Thanksgiving becomes the cornerstone.

Of.

Our inner reflection of what Jesus Christ has done for us that produces a proper sanctified life to be full of gratitude. Thanksgiving. It's a major exhortation from Paul For those who have been saved by grace through faith alone.

And we'll kind of get to that. Thanksgiving is a major Exhortation from Paul for those who have been saved by grace through faith alone. Thanksgiving is the main point here in Psalm 50.

Where we are at.

And it's also a holiday that there's a holiday centered on it in just two and a half weeks. So with this one stone, I am killing three birds. Do you realize that? Psalm 50 was like right around the corner.

And I was like man, it's right there. It's about Thanksgiving and to me sanctification is all found in Thanksgiving as Paul details. So I was like, hey, let's go for it. And so this is the topic of discussion for this Lord's Day and we see it as a topic of discussion here in Psalm 50.

God's Righteousness and the Problem of Thankless Worship

Beginning in Psalm 50. We see a common theme that we've already detailed last week that we talked about last week. You see that at the beginning of it God it's declaring God's perfection and his righteous beauty.

Look at verse 6. It's a good summation. The heavens declare his righteousness for God himself is Judge. Selah. Notice the righteous and beautiful character of who God is in verses 1 and 2. The mighty one God the Lord speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting out of Zion the perfection of beauty.

God shines forth from his creation. Remember that was a common theme that we talked about in Romans. Remember whenever God reveals his beautiful power in creation, right? His righteous. And yet God reveals his wrath because man does not respond to that beauty in creation the way that they should.

You remember Romans 1 20 for his invisible attributes. Namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

God reveals himself to be a righteous, beautiful, wonderful, awesome, powerful, everything good God in his creation and we see that being kind of Spoken of here in Psalm 50. The mighty one. The God the Lord God the Lord speaks and summons the earth from the rising of its sun to its setting.

Right creation out of Zion the perfection of beauty. God shines forth. And again the heavens declare his righteousness for God himself is judge. You see God is being lifted up as being beautiful and awesome in his creation displays of his righteous power.

But remember as we talked about man responds to such power without worship. So God's wrath is revealed and we see that here in Psalm 50 as well in verse 3. Our God comes he does not keep silence before him is a devouring fire around him a mighty Tempest or a mighty storm you see why is it so important that God does not keep silent?

Because he's dealing with a world that does not give him the proper worship that he deserves. And what it's saying is that God does not let that go on. He must answer that because he is righteous and perfect and good.

And so he does not keep silent. In fact, it says that he is a devouring fire. You think of a fire it needs fuel it needs things. It needs it needs fuel for it to rage on. Well, God has looked at here's a devouring fire.

What is his fuel? What is the fire that continues? What does it feed off of? Sin. God is a holy God righteous in all his ways and he devours sin. Where sin is he meets it and he ends it.

And.

Kind of as detailed as him being a mighty storm. It's a terrifying thing as we talked about God's wrath that he would meet wrath with. That he would meet sin with his wrath and it's like a storm. It's a fire that consumes.

So again, you have God showing his power and creation righteous and beautiful. You have man's response is not Proper and as sinful and so God is displayed as a wrathful God a devouring fire Consuming his adversaries and his enemies.

This is the same theme if you remember that we talked about last week. And again, the same thing we talked about last week. The only way we can avoid wrath is by what? God shows his power of salvation in sacrifice.

In Jesus Christ in his work of sacrifice, right? And here we get the same imagery in four and five the psalmist says He calls to the heavens above. And to the earth that he may judge he has a people. How does he have a people?

Well, he says gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me by Sacrifice you see so the only way that someone cannot be consumed by fire. Right by God's holy wrath is that we would approach him by sacrifice.

That's the only way we can have communion with this Holy God who hates sin as we are sinners so we can only approach him by sacrifice. And so he says gather these people. I have something to say to them in light of all the world watching.

I have something to say to them those who have made a covenant with me those who have Come close to me or those who I came close to.

By.

Sacrifice he says I think he's talking about the sacrifice that was made in exodus 24 Three through eight the initial sacrifice that moses Had in which he he spread the he he threw the blood. On the covenant of the of the testimony of the tabernacle.

And that was the sacrifice that got things going that god would be with them in their wanderings, right? It is the sacrifice. The way that god drew near to israel was by sacrifice. And so he says call those people to me who I am not consuming by my fire because they have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

But israel could enjoy god's presence in the promised land by sacrifice. That's the only way. Because of their sin he would not be with them. And their ability to stay in the promised land was through a daily life of sacrifice, which will be important later on.

We'll see. So in order to be together with god as they wandered they had to have the sacrifice. And they had to daily sacrifice morning and evening to continue to enjoy life with god in the promised land.

And it was at this daily sacrifice part that god had an issue with his people. There was a problem. And we see the problem here in seven as he draws out as he says, this is the issue I have. And he says in verse seven here.

Oh my people and I will speak. Oh israel. I will testify against you. I am god. You're god Says and this is my issue. It's not for your sacrifices. Do I rebuke you? Again continual sacrifices they would do each day.

Because your burnt offerings he says are continually before me. So he's saying i'm not angry. I'm not upset At you for failing to do your daily sacrifices as you're supposed to do. In fact, you are doing them.

They're daily before me. But it is how they're doing it. You get what i'm saying. It's not that they're doing. They're doing what they're supposed to do. But they're doing it in a way that god does not like.

And they're doing it in a way In which the world around them sacrifice to their gods.

The.

Pagan cultures around them sacrifice to their gods with blood with animals as if god. Or their god needed it.

Okay.

Uh, this is a a typical pagan non-christian Non-biblical way of understanding our god or god above is that he needs our worship. That in fact a lot of pagans around them god literally ate and consumed the sacrifice to live.

And thank god for proper scriptural understanding that our god is self-sufficient. He doesn't need anything from anyone. He created not because he needed. And so here though we see that they were doing the daily sacrifices as they were supposed to.

But they were doing it in a way like the world in which god needed those sacrifices and god does not like that.

He says.

In verse 8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you because your burnt offerings or sacrifices are continually before me you're doing them. But nevertheless, i'm not going to accept a bull from your house.

Or goats from your foals. Well, those were proper animals to sacrifice basis. I'm not going to accept it. I'm not going to take it. It's not going to be good to me. I'm not going to appreciate it because he says for every beast of the forest is mine the cattle on a thousand hills.

In other words all the hills of the earth all the animals. They're all mine so you can't sacrifice in a way in which I need it or it's like man. I'm really glad you brought that bowl because I was running empty.

They're all mine. Where you got your animals to sacrifice you got it from from my location from my place for my sovereignty. You got it from me. You can't you can't sacrifice as if I need it. As if i'm gained by it as if I need it to to live.

It's all mine anyways. He says for every beast of the forest is mine the cattle on a thousand hills. It's just an infinite amount of hills. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field.

It's all mine. Not going to give me anything that I need when it's all mine to begin with. Their sacrifices to me each day is not rooted in my need of it because I don't need it. That's huge. It's he kind of compounds it in the next verses.

He says let's just say I was hungry. Let's just say somehow possible I could be hungry right. I could be as god in need let's just say for the hay of it. That I was hungry. He says even if I was I wouldn't even tell you.

I wouldn't need to tell you. You wouldn't be up to my level to where I would tell you such a thing. I wouldn't tell you for the world and its fullness. It's mine.

I mean, yes.

Rhetorically, do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? And the answer is no. God is not like us. We're in need of food and drink. He is not we are needy. He is not we do not sacrifice to him as if he's in need of those sacrifices.

So again, the israelites they were doing as they were supposed to be doing right? That's not the issue. They were given the daily sacrifices sacrifices what made them able to be close to god. But yet they were doing it in a way in which god says I do not like.

They were doing it in a way as if god needs this. We can't fall into anything like that, can we? We can't fall into a mode of worship as we talked about last week when it's not as we'll see with a heart of gratitude.

But it's because in some way or the other god just wants me so bad to go to church. And worship and please do it. I need it. That says i'm not going to accept that worship that sacrifice because I don't need it don't give it to me as if I do.

The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving as the Foundation of Worship

What is the answer in verse 14? Don't do it like that, but rather offer to god offer me a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Right do that sacrifice but underlaying it underlying it needs to be this great Thankfulness within your heart.

As you provide that animal sacrifice you need to do it not like you need I need it but because you are so overwhelmed with thanksgiving for me. And then he says built off of that foundation of thanksgiving.

Then you are to he says in verse 14 perform your vows to the most high. To perform your vows to the most high means to to to act in a way that you should act right? When god has done something for you then in response we vow to him.

I shall do this in light of what you have done. So he says your actions your work in light of what i've done. Right needs to be with the basis of overwhelming gratitude and thanksgiving. To me the vows we do to god, right?

We do vows as well. We perform things In keeping with the salvation that we've been given right and it's and he says if it is not driven by thanksgiving. It is worthless. We don't do what we do to god because he needs it, but we do it because we are Full of gratitude for what he has done.

In fact, he says in verse 15 Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. See he flips the tables, doesn't he? Stop sacrificing to me like I need it instead you need to be needy.

Right you see what he's saying there cry out to me in your need and I will deliver you and that's how you'll see salvation. Don't you dare act like i'm the needy one here. You are the needy one and show that and you will see salvation.

So he flips the tables completely and says do not worship. Do not sacrifice in a way in which I need it rather you be needy cry out to me in your need. I will deliver you you will glorify me and you will then worship me in light of this with thanksgiving.

That is proper worship that is how we are to worship our god but notice as he goes on in verses 16 to 21 I I really think what what he's saying here is he says. A lack of gratitude in one season of life will create a season of sin in the next.

If you.

Locate your personal sin that you're struggling with right now and you kind of go back to the root. You're going to find a heart that lacks thanksgiving to god. You see what i'm saying. If you follow that to its root, you're going to see it results in something.

They're showing some kind of lack of thanksgiving to your god. And so we see here that a worship that fails to have thanksgiving as its foundation for what god has done for you. Will result in sin in the next.

He says in verses 16 to 21 He says but to the wicked god says what right do you even have to recite my law or take my covenant on your lips? He says you hate discipline and you cast my words behind you.

If you see a thief instead of stopping him or Working against them you are pleased with them and you keep company with adulterers with sinners. You give your mouth free reign he says in verse 19 for evil.

And your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your own brother. You slander your own mother's son. He says these things you've done. And i've been silent. And in my silence you thought that I was one of like yourself, but now i've rebuked you and lay the charge before you.

And so he has a summary statement in light of this right. In light of their thankless worship. In light of their thankless sacrifice. In light of their practice of sin and light because of their thanklessness.

He says in verse 22 is almost like a summation. He says mark this then you who forget god lest I tear you apart and there will be none to deliver. No more covenant for you. No more togetherness with god.

No more sacrifice. He says the one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice. This is the one who glorifies me. To one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of god. I will reveal the power of god in salvation.

The one who sacrifices with thanksgiving.

The New Covenant Sacrifice and Daily Living Sacrifice

Now.

We like israel see god's powerful salvation revealed by sacrifice, right? In order for us to be together with god We need a sacrifice just like israel did but our sacrifice is a better sacrifice of israel.

As we've been talking about in hebrews Israel was promised many promises of a land.

Of.

Prosperity in the land they had those promises and in order to be together with god in those promises in the land. They needed sacrifice and they needed daily sacrifice. Of a heart full of gratitude for god's provision for them.

But see we as the new covenant members as the fulfilled israel. We have greater promises. Don't we we have a greater sacrifice? Don't we like israel we come together with god for these greater promises by a sacrifice.

That's a sacrifice of jesus christ our lord. And with that great sacrifice provided for us We are to have a heart of gratitude of thanksgiving that shows itself in our daily lives and in our daily sacrifices as well.

You see as israel had daily sacrifices that they were to do each day. That god rejected because they were not doing it with thanksgiving. We have our daily sacrifices that we give each day, too. And no, i'm not about to set up an altar with animal worship.

What is our daily? sacrifice, what is our Daily sacrifice that we are to give with thanksgiving as well. Yes, you had it right. It is romans 12 verse 1. Romans 12 verse 1. Turn there with me, please romans 12 verse 1.