Cultvating Thanksfulness Psalm 135

Well, good morning, and welcome to Faith Bible Church. See some faces here, and I know there's many more that are at home.

And we say hello to you, our prayers and our greetings go out to you. And we're just thankful that we can gather in the manner that we are and that we can project and communicate via YouTube.

We'll take that one as well, and we're thankful that we can continue to try to be together as a church.

This is a difficult time. You know, we're really meant to congregate, to be with each other, and so, but we have to wait on the

Lord and trust Him, because He knows our path, He knows our trials,

He knows our struggles, and He is in our midst, and we thank Him for that.

Continue to be encouraged, the elders, Victor and I, and John is sharing with us in this process as well as we're pursuing an opportunity with the church, and more of that will come out over time, but we're trying to not make this a high and a low, and a high and a low, and yes and no, and yes and no, we want to be solid about what we ultimately can present to you.

So anyway, keep it in prayer, and they're encouraging activity there, so we're thankful, so certainly something to be thankful for.

And so, we're going to do it a little different today, but we're going to sing through, before you stand, we're going to sing,

We Gather Together. We gather together to ask the

Lord's blessing, He chastens and hastens

His will to make no trespassing, now cease from distressing, sing praises to His name,

He forgets not His own Before we continue, we're going to have, this is

Thanksgiving week, and as a believer, really every week ought to be Thanksgiving week, right? But we want to take a little time now to reflect on God's goodness, things that we are thankful for, to acknowledge

Him, even in these times, especially in these times, that even through the trials, and the difficulty, and the crises that are going on in our country, and the uncertainties of it all,

God is there, and we need to continue, that is when we draw upon our faith even more, is in time of trial, in time of difficulty.

So Janet's going to play through, We Gather Together a couple times, and I'd like you to each individually take a moment, heads bowed, and just pray to the

Lord, and express your thankfulness and gratitude for Him, for what He's given us, and then we'll continue singing after that.

So let's pray together silently. Our Lord God, we are so grateful for Your mercy, for Your grace, for Your love, that even in these trying times,

Father, You are there, You are guiding us, You are showing us a better way,

Father, through this challenging time, Father. Thank You that You love us abundantly, that Lord, we do not need to lean on our own understanding of the things that are going on around us, because we don't understand the things that are happening,

Father, but You do, You know, and may we trust You now,

Lord. And Father, continue to allow us to have a heart of gratitude, a heart of thanksgiving at all times, that we might see

You in a way that will just draw us to Yourself, Father. Father, we ask that You would bless us this morning as we draw near to You in worship, together in hearing of the

Word. We pray for Pastor John, that You would bless him and use him, Father, as Your instrument in proclaiming the truth of the gospel,

Father. So Lord, we commit our time to You, and give You praise in all things, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Let's stand together as we continue to sing, As We Gather Together.

We gather together to ask the

Lord's blessing. He chastens and hastens

His will to make known the will of His people.

Now cease from distressing, sing praises to His name.

He forgets not His own. Beside us to guide us, our

God, with us joining, ordaining, maintaining

His kingdom. We've a beginning, let our side all be

Thine. We all do extol

Thee, Thou Leader triumphant. Thou still our defender wilt be.

Let Thy congregation escape tribulation.

By name be ever God's free.

Our next song is Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart, in giving thanks and seeing the providence of God through trials and difficult times.

Rejoice, ye pure in heart. Rejoice, give thanks and sing.

You're the cross of Christ your

King. Rejoice, rejoice.

Rejoice, give thanks and sing. With all the angels, the saints on earth, pour out the strains of joy and lift.

Rejoice, rejoice. Rejoice, give thanks and sing.

Yes, on through life's long path, in this and in more.

Rejoice, give thanks and sing.

Still lift your standard high, still march in firm array.

As warriors through the dawn's good glory, rejoice, give thanks and sing.

Give thanks with a grateful heart. I love this song.

I've known it for many years and it normally brings tears to my eyes. It's very emotive.

So really think about the words and let's give thanks with our hearts. Give thanks with a grateful heart.

Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks because He's given

Jesus Christ His Son.

Now let the weak say I am strong.

Let the poor say I am rich because of what the

Lord has done. Give thanks.

Let us give thanks. Please be seated. Jim, will you come up for the scripture reading?

Good morning. Our scripture reading for this morning is found in Psalm 135.

Psalm 135. Praise ye the

Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord, ye servants of the Lord.

Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the

Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praises unto His name, for it is pleasant. For the

Lord Himself has chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure.

For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Once the Lord blessed, that did

He in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places.

He caused the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth.

He maketh lightnings for the rain. He bringeth the wind out of the treasuries.

He is both the firstborn of Egypt, both man and beast, who sent tokens and runners into the midst of the old

Egypt upon Pharaoh and upon all his servants, who spoke great nations and slew mighty kings.

Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave their land for inheritance and heritage unto

Israel, His people. Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever, and I am memorial,

O Lord, throughout all generations. For the Lord will judge His people, and He will repent

Himself concerning His servants. The idols of the heathens are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not.

They have ears, but they hear not. Neither is there any breath in their nostril mouths.

They that make them are like unto them, for it is so is everyone that trusteth in them.

Bless the Lord, O house of Israel. Bless the Lord, O house of Aaron.

Bless the Lord, O house of Levi. Ye that fear the Lord, bless the

Lord. Blessed be the Lord of Zion, which dwelleth at Jerusalem.

Praise ye the Lord. May the Lord bless you to His reward. Thank you so much,

Jim. Well, we're going to go to Psalm 135 in just a few moments, but before we go there, would you join me and go to 1

Thessalonians chapter 5? In the New Testament, almost all the way through 1

Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

We had a real blessing. I think some of you know that both my daughters are involved in a national speech and debate league, so we go to tournaments in California and sometimes in other states, but it was a debate tournament and it was down in Modesto area at a

Christian school, and there was about 150, 140 high school students.

All the men were dressed in coats and ties. All the young men dressed in coats and ties.

All the ladies were in business attire. I got a chance to visit with quite a few people that I haven't seen for a while, and a number of them, one in particular, was joking about some of the things that are going on with COVID, and this one guy said, yeah, we're celebrating with all of our family, all of our brothers and sisters are coming to our house for turkey, and I'm making a sign for the front yard that says the

French Laundry, which is the name of the restaurant that our governor went to at $350 a plate with no masks and no social distancing, and I thought, what a neat idea, and I said,

I took it one step further. I said, why don't we all get in our cars at around 1030 at night and start driving the streets waving

American flags and drive for four or five hours in the middle of the night just to break the curfew?

I mean, really, you think about it. There's a curfew from 10 p .m. to 5 a .m.

How many people are out mingling at 10 a .m., I'm sorry, 10 p .m.

to 5 a .m.? Not me, I'm in bed. So we're gonna go to Psalm 135 in a moment, but my daughters did very well.

First of all, it requires a certain, you have to get so many points and have so many wins.

This is the first time they're both partners in a debate. They do what's called team policy debates, so it's two against two.

It's a historical method of debating, and then another method is called Lincoln and Douglas, going after the famous debate between Abraham Lincoln and Douglas and where Abraham Lincoln won.

And these young ladies qualified, got one what's called a checkmark to qualify for the national finals.

How about that? Am I a proud dad? So let's pray.

Father, we're so thankful for this day for the great blessing of being together. We think of those that are at home that are not here joining us.

I just personally, as a pastor, I want to give each of them a hug.

I want to say hi. I want to tell them how much we miss them. I want to tell them how wonderful it is to be together and to worship the

Lord. And Lord, we pray that as we turn to your word this morning, that our hearts would be encouraged and strengthened,

God. We pray, Father, most of all for your glory. We know that you're a good

God. You're an amazing God that you knew because you're omniscient before the foundation of this world that our country would be in the position that it's in right now.

We know, God, that because you're all powerful that you can stop this virus and what the politicians are doing with this virus and the media.

You can do that right this moment because we know,

God, you are all powerful. But we also know, God, that your ways are higher than our ways.

So as we turn to your word, we ask, God, that the Holy Spirit would be our teacher, that he might empower the word, that he would point us to Christ, even if we're watching by video,

God. We pray, God, that you would just empower your word to strengthen the hearts of your people, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen? So for about the last 10 years or so, we've had a garden where we grow vegetables, various vegetables, always have tomatoes, almost always have squash, eggplant, peppers, green peppers.

I love green peppers in my salad, so we have green peppers and we have beans. I built this kind of trellis out of concrete framing material, so we have beans.

And everybody that has a garden or has ever had a garden knows that it takes some work and some effort.

The soil needs to be prepared, often through rototilling. We have quite a large garden, so I rototill it so that the fresh soil, the soil that's down underneath comes up and it has a chance to get oxygen and nutrients.

And a lot of times, almost every year, but sometimes I don't get around to it, you're supposed to put compost in there.

Ideally, right now would be a great time to spread compost and let the rain put it in. If the soil was a little more dry,

I would rototill it right now and get that compost in there so it has a chance to just work its way through the soil all winter.

You add fertilizer oftentimes in the spring. You level it out. And this process, all of that work is called cultivating.

You cultivate the soil. And the word cultivate actually means to prepare and use land, listen, to prepare and use land for crops or gardening.

That's the actual word. Now, this is an extremely difficult year for millions of people around the world and in the

United States. We were just talking about that before the service with Barb and one of the ladies.

Just the challenges that are going on right now. And right around the corner is a national holiday called

Thanksgiving. And the idea with Thanksgiving is to be thankful.

And the reality is that sometimes it can be quite challenging to be thankful. A friend of mine used to say,

John, you need an attitude of gratitude. Those were in the days when

I couldn't afford a new tire for my car. I mean, some of you remember when your muffler used to go out and you didn't have the money for a muffler, they had muffler tape.

So you crawl under the car and you wrap your muffler with this tape that supposedly will keep it.

And within 25 miles, the tape blows. So today, as we look ahead to this

Thanksgiving holiday, that the government says we should celebrate alone. I want to look together at some lessons from God's word about being thankful, especially and specifically about some ways that God's word tells us we can cultivate thankfulness.

The Thanksgiving holiday was first celebrated, as we know, by early immigrants to North America.

There was about 110 people on the Mayflower. Almost all of them were

Christians, were solid Bible -believing believers that had been born again. A few were just God -fearers.

They believed in God, but they had not been saved. And they had come from Great Britain to this country.

Listen to me carefully. They had come to this country to get away from government control over their worship of God.

They wanted religious freedom. They wanted the freedom to worship God apart from government control.

Does that sound a little familiar? Roughly half of the first immigrants to the

United States died in their first winter here. And the half that did survive dedicated a number of days, really a whole week, to celebrate and give thanks to God for his loving and watchful care over them.

So this morning, in honor of what is now a national official holiday in the United States, I want to speak with you.

The message title, if you have your notes, is Cultivating Thankfulness. And my focus this morning is not going to be on just being thankful in general and just that whole idea of a feeling, like Harold talked about when we sing that song,

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart. It's a favorite of mine. There's something about the melody, the way that that song, that chorus is written, that it just generates a thankful heart.

Give thanks with a grateful heart. But the idea and the truth that I want to drill into is how to cultivate thankfulness and being thankful to God.

And maybe there is a bell ringing in the back of your mind because the

Bible is very clear about believers being thankful. In fact, the

Bible is very clear that it is God's will and his desire that his children be thankful.

God's children are specifically told in God's word to be thankful again and again.

And again, what I'm saying is not being thankful in just that general sense, but specifically to be thankful to God.

Christians are to be thankful people. Christians are to be thankful people. Now, if you look here at 1

Thessalonians 5, Now, if you look here at 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul is ending this first letter to this young church,

Thessalonica, at which he only was able to spend just a couple of weeks. One of the only churches where he spent that short a time.

The churches of Galatia, probably a year and a half. Ephesus, three years. Rome, not at all.

So you have the Book of Romans, which is his magnus opus, as it were. And you come to 1

Thessalonians, and he's wrapping up this letter, and he says in verse 16, Rejoice always.

How often? Why did we sing the song, Rejoice, you pure in heart? Rejoice always.

Pray, how often? Without ceasing. Verse 18.

In everything, give thanks. In everything. Wow.

Everything? Yeah, everything. In the Greek, everything means? Everything.

You mean when I get the flat tire? Yeah. You mean when your child who's learning to drive almost gets you in an accident?

Yeah. In everything, right? For this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus for you.

In Ephesus, I mean, I'm sorry, in Ephesians, the Apostle Paul told the believers in Ephesus, do not cease giving thanks.

He told them in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18, Be filled with the

Spirit, speaking to one another with hymns, songs, and spiritual songs, singing, singing, and making melody in your heart to the

Lord, always giving thanks to God through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Ephesians 5, he says, let no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting which are not fitting, but giving thanks.

1 Corinthians 1 .4, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Philippians 4 .6, be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3 .17, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the

Lord Jesus, giving thanks to Him. Giving thanks to Him.

God's people should always be giving thanks. And this attitude and disposition is not to be limited just to thanksgiving or birthday parties or when we get a raise at work, but giving thanks at all times.

Christians are to be and should be thankful people. Now, go to Psalm 135.

It is God's will for His people to be thankful people, and yet experience teaches us and tells us that sometimes being thankful, listen,

I don't know about you, but sometimes being thankful isn't automatic, and it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

You know, it's dark in a room, we come in and we flip the switch, and the light goes on, right? Simple. But at times being thankful isn't as simple as flipping on a light switch.

You know, I've talked to many people over the years, and there are times when even sincere believers can find it challenging to be thankful to God.

And the blessing and the encouragement that God's Word has to offer us this morning in Psalm 135 is that this

Psalm lays out a kind of how -to instruction sheet when it comes to having a thankful heart.

Now, this year it was kind of interesting. We put our garden in, it was late because of the weather that we were having in March and April, so it was just too wet to till.

But we were having problems. Once we got the tomatoes in, I was like, honey, we need to get the tomatoes in. I went and bought little,

I think one or two tomato plants and put them in a pot, because it kept raining. If you remember, it was raining all the time, so the garden soil just wasn't drying out.

So, I put a couple in a pot, just to get started, you know. But we were having, once we got them in,

Janet's like, there's no, the little yellow flowers, they're not coming in, which is what turns into a tomato.

If you know tomatoes, the little yellow flowers, that gives you a tomato. And so she Googled, and she goes,

I think I know what it is. I don't see any bees out there. They're not getting pollinated.

What do we do? Run to Home Depot, get, they recommended marigolds and lavender.

So we popped some marigolds in the garden, and then we put a lavender in a thing, and within a day or two, we had bees.

And very shortly after, we had the little yellow flowers. Guess what? Google was right about that.

I don't know what else it's right about. So, in the same way, there are times when we aren't necessarily feeling thankful to God.

Or we aren't being thankful to God. Or we're finding it a challenge to be thankful to God because of the circumstances we're facing.

And the truth is, listen, the truth is we're hardly in the mood to be thankful about anything with that stuff going on.

I mean I've got to take my car. I mean we just bought the car, we've got to go put new tires on. The check engine light came on.

Oh, no. Another thousand dollars. So, my prayer is that we understand this psalm more fully.

We can learn some things that are helpful when it comes to cultivating thankfulness. We added marigolds, and we added that lavender to our garden, and we began to see fruit.

We began to see yellow flowers, and pretty soon we began to see those tomatoes. So, what does

Psalm 135 tell us to add to the soil of our heart and our thinking so that we can be more thankful?

Now, if you look at the psalm, I want you to look at it in your mind's eye, the overview, all 21 verses.

Because this psalm follows a classic Hebrew poetry pattern called chiastic, a chiastic structure.

And if you were to diagram it, and I would put it maybe on a slide for you, basically what happens is in a chiastic structure, the first two, three verses are the main message.

Then you will have all kinds of support. And then you come back, and you have the main message.

And the reason they wrote this way is to make sure you got the message, okay. So, if you look at verses 1 and 2,

Jim, thank you for reading it. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the

Lord. See the word praise? Praise. Praise. So, there is this call, and this charge to praise the

Lord, verses 1 and 2. Then when you read through it, and you go verses 3 through 18,

He gives you reasons why you should praise the Lord. There is this call to praise the

Lord. Then there is all these reasons why to praise the Lord. And then He comes back again in verses 19 to 21, and He tells you, here is this charge again, beginning in verse 19, to praise the

Lord. So, the call and the charge to praise the Lord, then repeat it at the end.

Get it in your head. So, the psalm follows the chiastic structure of Hebrew poetry.

It is meant to emphasize a particular message or truth. And the purpose of the psalm writer here is to encourage believers to praise and thank the

Lord. So, it is through this lens of praise, through looking through this lens, this call to be praising

God, that believers can find the, basically, if you want to put it this way, the biblical truths, the fertilizer, right, the water, the sunshine that will cultivate thankfulness that is a fruit of having a joyful relationship with the

Lord. People cultivate gardens by tilling the soil, by adding compost and fertilizer, by watering, by pulling weeds.

This year we added marigolds and lavender to attract bees. And all of these, all of this work together to produce the vegetables we're still enjoying, okay?

So, what do we learn in this psalm about having a joyful relationship with God that will in turn cultivate and produce thankfulness?

Number one, cultivating thankfulness requires obeying the call and the charge to praise the

Lord. I want to say that again. Cultivating thankfulness requires obeying the call and the charge to praise the

Lord. This is how the psalmist begins the psalm.

He says in verse 1, by the way, the exclamation points at the end of the very first part of the verse, at the end of verse 1, those exclamation points are not in the original

Hebrew. They are put there by the translators to help us understand the enthusiasm. And, you know, sometimes people, they kind of get put off.

If the pastor gets kind of excited about a message, it can get, whoa, I'm a little overwhelmed.

But the idea here is praise the Lord! Come on!

Praise the name of the Lord! That's the idea, okay? And I'll calm down now. O ye servants of the

Lord, you who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our

God. That's the idea. So what I want you to do to get some traction from this psalm, as we work our way through it this morning, and we won't get too far through it, but we'll get some.

What I want you to do, if you can, listen to me. I want this to mean something to you, okay?

So here's what you need to try to do. It's going to take some humility.

It's going to take some honesty. Overlay your attitude and your disposition this morning when we were singing.

As hard as that one song, a little rejoice, kind of hard for us guys to get up there.

But overlay your attitude and your disposition when you're singing the

Lord in the church or when you're at home and it's time to do your daily devotions.

Overlay your attitude and your disposition, your state of mind with what we're going to learn in this psalm, okay?

Because there's a number of truths here about praising the Lord that are significant in understanding what it means to cultivate thankfulness, okay?

First of all, it begins with the word praise. The word praise comes from a

Hebrew word, the root, that is the giving off of light.

I can't pronounce it properly. Pastor Bernstein could. That man,

I'll tell you what, I sat here, we all did, Sunday after Sunday. He nailed biblical pronunciation.

I went up to him and I said to him one time, I said, Pastor Bernstein. He goes,

What, John? I said, I have been pronouncing that word wrong for 20 years.

He goes, Well, I just you know, you know how he was, right? I just made sure that I had him down.

And I'm Jewish, remember? So, he nailed it, right? Did something happen? Are we okay?

Okay. So, the word, the root word that is translated praise here refers to the giving off of light by celestial bodies like the light from stars.

Now, how far away is a star? They say they're millions of light years away and we can still see them.

Have you ever looked at the sun? Astronomers say and astrophysicists say that the sun is like a star, but the star is millions of light years away.

The sun is a lot closer, right? What happens to you when you try to stare at the sun? You go blind.

That's how bright it is. That's the word. So, to get a handle on the meaning of this word, it's significant and it's significance to being thankful.

Imagine for a moment how you feel when you're out in the woods away from all the lights of the city, the light pollution, and you look up into the nighttime sky and you see millions and billions of stars.

You ever been camping? And you ever looked up into the nighttime sky? I don't know about you, but to me, it's overwhelming.

It is unbelievable that there's so many stars that we can see the light to. So, think of that swelling of the heart and the awe at the majestic beauty of stars in a clear nighttime sky.

Another way the word was used was to help people to understand the contrast between being in the dark and in the light, okay?

So, the word was used to describe that feeling. If you can imagine being in a dark tunnel and you're walking, there's no light, you have no flashlight, the flashlight is burned out, you're in this tunnel, but way up ahead, you see this little speck of light.

And it's so dark and you're feeling claustrophobic and there's bugs and stuff and you're going through this tunnel and the light keeps getting bigger.

You know that feeling? Can you imagine it? Huh? Can you? And you're going down that tunnel and as you come out, you burst into the light.

Praise God, I'm safe! You know that? Can you relate? A little?

That's the idea. You're overpowered by the light. So, the psalmist here is talking about the bright and full, overflowing enthusiasm in our praise and our worship of the

Lord. It's like I've been to some baseball games, and you're in the crowd, and your team is down.

I've been to, I don't know maybe four baseball games in my life. When we first moved to Arizona the

Arizona Diamondbacks, was that the name? They were winning the World Series for the first time. And this church, like 90 % of the church,

I've never seen it before, they were like Diamondback fans. And they were screaming and yelling, and we finally went to a

Diamondbacks game, and you can't believe these people screaming and yelling. That's the idea. That's the idea.

Now, there's something else. Because not only is that characteristic of the praise of God's people.

Notice what he says. He says praise the name of the Lord. And this is so helpful and so important to understand.

Because God's use of names in the Old Testament, names are very, very important to God.

Remember He changed Abram to Abraham to communicate a message.

He changed Peter's name. He changed Saul of Tarsus that killed

Christians and persecuted Christians. He changed his name from Saul to Paul.

The psalmist says, praise the Lord. And then he modifies, he strengthens that.

He doesn't just keep saying praise the Lord. He then says praise the name of the Lord. And he's using the personal name of God.

Most of your Bibles when you look at the name Lord there, they're all capitals.

And that's to tell you there's a significant difference between in the Old Testament when you come across the word

Lord, L -O -R -D, where the O -R -D is lowercase, and L -O -R -D, they're all capitals.

When in the Old Testament you see the name Lord, the word Lord, and it's all capitals, and then you also can differentiate other times where you see it capital

L, lowercase O -R -D. When it's all capitals, it's the name Yahweh.

The name Yahweh is the personal name of God. It's like when you're referring to somebody, there's a huge difference between somebody's personal name and just this person sitting there, right?

Like if I'm looking at Victor, and I go, that guy's sitting back there. You're going, who is he talking about?

That guy sitting back there. But if I say Victor, or Mr. Arnett, does that change everything for you?

That's his personal name. And the moment that you say Victor, you think about the fact that he was at Jeanette's house this week fixing something, and then last

Saturday he was down here fixing a light bulb, and the Saturday before that he was doing, right? Everything that you know about Victor as a man comes flooding in, or Harold, or any of us, right?

That's the idea. This is his personal name. And the idea here is

God, listen, later in the Psalm, he talks about idols.

Verse 15, the idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak. Eyes they have, but they do not see.

They have ears, but they do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouth. Beloved, compare those idols to Yahweh, who speaks to us, who knows us.

Every hair on our head is numbered, who is all powerful, who spoke this world into being.

That is the idea. This is the, God is not some abstract idea, some statue on the wall of a

Chinese restaurant. He is a personal God that is personal to his people.

So the psalmist here, by using the name Yahweh, is calling our attention to the character of God.

He's calling our attention to all that God is, all that he reveals to his people about himself, to his people and his word.

The idea here is that both God and his character are worthy of our time and our effort to think about today and every day.

I was at that tournament yesterday, and I was judging kids, and I couldn't stop thinking about my kids, because they're my kids, right?

They're my daughters, because they're my daughters. Our God is worthy to think about.

He's a personal God. His character and his nature and who he is is worthy of our enthusiastic, joyful praise and thanksgiving.

Now, apparently, listen, this issue of praise is so important, and it's so important, it is important enough that the psalmist calls out three major groups of people to praise the

Lord. Notice that he says, Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the

Lord. Look at this. Praise him, O ye servants of the Lord.

Praise him, you who stand in the house of the Lord. Praise him in the courts of the house of our

God. So, the first group, the end of verse 1, are servants of the Lord. Servants of the

Lord. This likely refers to the priests who served in the tabernacle in the wilderness or the temple.

They were specifically and especially designated to lead worship. Priests, they're the ones who offered the sacrifice.

They're the ones who, when you brought the sacrifice, told you what did you do? Why did you do it?

What were you thinking when you did that sin? Okay, cut the throat of this animal and stop sinning.

Another group was those who stand in the house of the Lord. Most likely, this was the servants in the temple because the temple had all kinds of things that had to be done.

When people gave offering at the tabernacle, when they brought offerings, they would have to be taken to the treasury.

So, there were servants that did cleaning and helped the priests with things like that. There's two basic groups of priests from the tribe of Levi, but only the line of Aaron represented the priesthood.

So, these two groups, the servants of the Lord and those who stand in the house of the Lord, likely represented all of the

Levites that had been specially called into the service of the Lord to lead God's people in worship and in the tabernacle.

And then he says there's a third group, those who are in the courts, those who are in the courts.

Those are the people that are not Levites. They're the ones who are standing all around observing the worship.

The area of the temple that was reserved for the priests was for priests alone, those who stood in the courts, all the rest of Israel.

What is he saying? Everyone. Everyone here is there. Jim, you.

Katie, you. Kim, you. My daughter Jackie. Jim. All of us get together.

Everybody here, praise the Lord. Let's get together and let's cheer and let's praise and let's shout to the

Lord. That's the idea. Amen? Now, if you can get that picture, hopefully you begin to get a better idea about thankfulness.

See, because it should be because of what the psalmist is saying here, that cultivating thankfulness is an outgrowth of knowing and remembering and reflecting on who and what

God is and walking in those truths about God. See, most of us have many things to be thankful for, and we should be.

You know, we should be thankful to God that we have a roof over our heads. We should be thankful to God that we have the financial means to have clothes and food on the table.

We should be thankful to God for family. We should be thankful to God for things like the freedoms and the opportunities that we have in this country.

And cultivated soil is where a productive garden starts. So, we cannot and should not forget that in the same way thankfulness is rooted and cultivated through a meaningful relationship with God.

And friends, that relationship is possible today because of the death, burial, and resurrection of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, we learn in this psalm that cultivating thankfulness is a result of having a joyful relationship with God.

And the cornerstone of the foundation for that kind of relationship with God is obedience.

Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey me. And the obedience that is being called to here is to praise the

Lord in this way. To praise Him like the lights of heaven light us up and take our breath away.

Praise Him in a way that would make football fans in a football stadium be embarrassed.

But the psalmist doesn't leave us with just this command and this call to praise the Lord. Because when it comes to how to cultivate thankfulness

He's now going to answer the question of why. Alright, so let's get the picture.

We have the call to praise the Lord, right? Now, that should be good enough.

Alright, we can end the psalm right there. Couldn't we? Yeah, I want to obey God. Okay, I got it.

But now He's going to spend the rest of the psalm until the last three verses giving us reasons why we should do that.

Okay, why should God's people praise Him? The psalmist lists I don't have the time to go through them all.

But if you look at the psalm later today, or maybe in your devotions this week, there's at least six different reasons why the people of God should respond and obey this call to praise the

Lord. We'll hit two of them. The first one is in verse 3. Praise the

Lord. Why? Amen. The Lord is good. Now, when we talk about the

Lord being good, it is a universal and all encompassing attribute of God.

The Lord is good. Yahweh, this personal God, not this idol on the wall of a

Chinese restaurant that can't breathe, that can't see, that can't talk, that can't hear, that can do nothing.

The Lord is good. Amen. You nailed it.

The Lord is, are you reading my notes? The Lord is good all the time.

The Lord is good in all things, and in all ways, and all the time. The Lord's wisdom is good.

The Lord's knowledge is good. The Lord's judgments are good. The Lord's power is good. The Lord's love is good.

And Psalm 34, verse 8 says, Oh, taste and see that the

Lord is good. How blessed is the man that takes refuge in him.

I miss those days when my daughters took refuge in me. Daddy.

Now it's, come here. No way. The Lord is good.

Social distancing, Dad. A thankful heart is cultivated as God's people remember the

Lord's overwhelming goodness. It's like adding fertilizer to a garden. The veggies grow better, and faster, and even more tasty.

I did it for the first time in 10 years. I remembered to fertilize the citrus trees before it rained.

I'm so excited. I can't wait to taste those oranges this year. I was out there, you know, before, I said, Oh, I forget every year

I got this organic citrus fertilizer, right, that they said at Green Acres it's the way to go.

So, I'm under there under the citrus trees, spreading it out. It's going to pour rain, and then it poured rain, and that fertilizer's in there.

So, a helpful question. I had to get you to laugh because now you're going to be mad at me.

Okay. Don't get mad at me. A helpful question to ask ourselves when it comes to thinking about the goodness of God and having a joyful relationship with Him is this.

Are we absolutely convinced that God is good? Are we absolutely convinced that God is good?

And do we truly in our heart of hearts believe it? For example, will

God still be good if all things aren't going so well in our lives? Will God still be good if we get a phone call with bad news?

And now let me really hit it home. Would God still be good if the

President that you think should be elected isn't elected? Would God still be good?

And see what's so often the case is there's two groups of people in a typical church when it comes to truly being convinced that the

Lord is good. For example one group of people they hear or read that God is good.

They come across this verse, praise the Lord for the Lord is good. And they are absolutely convinced that it's true.

And this group would be willing to stand no matter what and give a testimony of how great God really is.

I have a good friend like that. He's an elder in a church in the area. And he was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

And he's a young man. And we went to see him at the hospital. And his wife was wringing her hands and everything else.

He was a man in our church for many, many years and a lovely man. And he said, the

Lord is good. There's people that no matter what are ready to stand and testify no matter what.

His wife was then diagnosed a year later with peritoneal stomach cancer, cancer of the lining of the stomach, peritoneal.

Did I say it right? They gave her two years to live. The Lord is good.

You know how long she's been living? Going on six years. She made the trip to South America to say goodbye to her family.

She flew the family. She retired. She flew the family up to say goodbye. And she's still saying goodbye.

The Lord is good. All the time. Now, that's one group.

The other group would be people who would struggle to be convinced that God is really and truly good.

There are sincere Christians who go to church who read the Bible, but perhaps deep in their heart they struggle because there's challenges or there's junk in their life.

And they ask their question quietly in their heart, how can God be good? They might say, you know, the truth is

I don't really have any real friends. They might say, you know,

I'm not that popular. You know, I've been waiting for a wife.

Seems like God just forgot about me. They might say, man,

I don't like my job. I got the worst boss that ever lived.

I don't have a job. How can God be good?

And see, this second condition and this second group of people who would say that they struggle to believe that God is truly and really good, listen, demonstrates the importance of God's Word in our lives.

See, the struggle of being convinced that God is really and truly good demonstrates the importance of God's Word.

Because we're reminded in this psalm that one of the purposes of reading and knowing

God's Word is that it takes us back to the past to affirm

God's goodness. You see, as we read the Word of God, it's like we're taking a shovel to the soil of our heart, and we're turning it over to reveal that soil that's down there that needs to be renewed with the documentation and the evidence and the testimony of God's goodness.

And you see, this is what the psalmist does. He says to you, are you struggling to really believe that God is good?

Look at verse 8. Don't you remember he destroyed the firstborn of Egypt, both man and beast?

Don't you remember he sent signs and wonders into the midst of you, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and all his servants?

Don't you remember that he defeated many nations and slew many kings?

Don't you remember Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan?

Don't you remember that he gave us their land? You see, no matter what the present circumstances in the lives of the people that we're reading this psalm, the writer takes them back to God's goodness, and power, and faithfulness.

But he doesn't stop there. Another reason to praise the

Lord. Look at verse 4. For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,

Israel for his special treasure. See, God's people should praise

Him for their salvation. You see the Lord chose Jacob. It's really challenging to understand this.

This is an incredible verse that is repeated over and over. But you see

God in His sovereignty, in His wisdom, in His all knowing power, in His goodness chose

Jacob for salvation over his brother Esau. God chose

Abram over his brothers. Abram had two other brothers, God chose him. God chose

Joseph over his brothers, right? Twelve brothers, He chose Joseph. He chose

Saul, first king of Israel. He chose David over his brothers. He chose the nation of Israel over all the other nations of the world.

And see the reality is, dear beloved, the reality is we share in the blessing of God, not because we're so good, or great, or because we gave $5 to the homeless guy at the corner.

We share in the blessings of God because of His loving choice of you and us, you and me. Many are called, few are chosen.

God's love for the world is seen in the giving of His Son to die on the cross that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The cross is the universal symbol of God. Man, last night at the debate, the speech club, the speech and debate club that sponsored the tournament, they had a school all set up.

That's where we're going to have the tournament. And they got a phone call from a Christian school down there and said,

Hey, would you like to meet over here? We got all this room. Nobody's here. It's Thanksgiving break.

So they, at the last minute, changed the venue from the school to the

Christian school. Right? And it was beautiful. And this school had this huge cross.

Remember that huge cross by the building? And I went, I looked over as we were going to run out to In -N -Out for dinner, this huge cross, the cross, the cross.

It's the universal symbol of love. If you want to know what love looks like, start looking at the cross.

I submit that the psalmist in referring to Jacob and Esau, the psalmist is reminding us that God's love and grace demands and calls us to love

Him and to praise Him. And the truth, when it comes to praise

Him and their hearts begin to become full of joy. And from that joy comes a thankful heart.

God's people are called and they're charged to praise Him. God is seeking worshipers.

God is seeking people to praise and worship Him in spirit and in truth. The psalmist gives six reasons.

I don't have time to go through them all. Those are just two. In verse three, God's people should praise the Lord because He is good.

Verse four, God's people should praise the Lord for their salvation. You know, it's

Thanksgiving week, right? It's a time to purposely be thankful.

Psalm 135 is a call and a charge for believers to praise the Lord. And it is out of praise for God that believers can cultivate a thankful heart.

They can cultivate thankfulness. Verse one, praise the

Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Praise Him, O servants of the

Lord. And then he ends the psalm. Look at verse 19.

Bless the Lord, O house of Israel. Do you see the exclamation point? Bless the

Lord, O house of Aaron. Do you see the exclamation point? Bless the

Lord, O house of Levi. Do you see the exclamation point? You who fear the

Lord, bless the Lord. And that tells us everybody that is a believer, everybody born again, everybody truly saved, you who fear the

Lord, the saved person, saved by faith, Old Testament or New Testament, fears the

Lord, reveres the Lord. Everybody, everybody bless the

Lord. Blessed be the Lord out of Zion who dwells in Jerusalem. Did you not get it yet?

Praise the Lord. You see, everyone who is a child of God from the priest to the peasant that believes in God is to praise

Him. And friends, this was written before Jesus Christ, which means before the people of the world could hear the message of the cross, before they could hear the

Gospel, before having seen the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, how much more should we be praising

God this way? How much more should we praise the Lord? How much more should we rejoice in the

Lord? How much more should we children of the new covenant give us thanks? You see, a

Google search told us we needed bees to pollinate our tomato, tomato plants.

God's Holy Word tells believers who want to cultivate thankfulness that they must first respond to God's call to praise

Him. And that praise is a means of grace to cultivate a joyful relationship with God.

Overlay your disposition on Sunday mornings when you sing these songs of praise to the

Lord. Some of you might be new Christians. Real quick free, freebie. The Roman Catholic Church, as it apostatized the

Christian religion, okay, as the Roman Catholic Church apostatized the

Christian religion, the music went to what's called a Gregorian chant, okay.

And it was just, you know, if you've ever heard a Gregorian chant, okay.

It was the Protestant Reformation that brought hymnody back into the church, beginning with Martin Luther's famous hymn,

A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And people were illiterate in those days.

You didn't go to put a book on your Kindle or your phone or read a book. Most people were illiterate.

So, you know how they taught people the truths of the Word of God? Through songs, through hymns, okay.

So, when we sing these hymns, we are learning about God. And what a joy to learn about God.

You look at most of the music that we sing in this church, and it's meant historically to teach us about God, to reveal us about God.

And God's Holy Word tells us that believers who want to cultivate thankfulness must first respond, right, to God's call to praise

Him. Praise the Lord, that's what you need to do. Obey. And that praise is a means of grace.

It's like that song, it's like I couldn't even, I did not tell Harold what I was preaching on this morning. He saw, in the order of service,

Psalm 135. But then he offered a testimony, you know, I don't know what it is about this song, but I love this song.

Give thanks with a grateful heart. If you obey God to praise Him that way, the fruit of that, a means of grace, is, produces a joyful relationship with God, which then produces thankfulness.

I'm done. Hallelujah. Can I lead the last song?

Would you bring it up? Let's really sing to the

Lord. Amen? I'll turn this off. And if you're watching by video, we miss you.

If we can do anything, if we can pray for you, email us, right, Victor, and we'll pray for you.

We'll make sure everybody prays for you. But what a beautiful way, it's such a wonderful psalm.

And what a wonderful way to end our service. Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore

Him. Let's stand together and let's, let's really praise the Lord. Do you see the first, does this look familiar?

Praise the Lord. Right? Praise the

Lord, ye heavens adore Him. Praise Him, angels in the height.

Sun and moon rejoice before Him. Praise Him, all ye stars of light.

Praise the Lord, for He has spoken worlds His mind obeys, obeyed laws, which never shall be broken, for their guidance

He hath made. Praise the

Lord, for He is glorious, never shall His promise fail.

God hath made His saints victorious, sin and death shall not prevail.

Praise the God of our salvation. Hosts on high

His power proclaim. Heaven and earth and all creation, loud and magnified

His name. Hold on, Tim. Do you see that scripture in those verses? Everybody praise

Him. All the hosts of heaven, His power proclaim. Heaven and earth and all creation, loud and magnified.

This is a biblical song to teach us biblical truth about our God. The last verse, worship, honor, glory, blessing,

Lord we offer unto Thee. On the last. Worship, honor, glory, blessing,

Lord we offer unto Thee. Young and old

Thy praise expressing, in glad homage bend the knee.

All the saints in heaven adore Thee. We would bow before Thy throne as Thine angels serve before Thee.

So on earth Thy will be done. Let's pray.

Father God, You know everything. You know our hearts.

You know our minds. God, You know the circumstances of our life, the trials.

You know, Father, that what is going on in our country, the devastation that it's causing in so many people's lives,

God, these businesses that just barely got going again. God, we want to join the priests, the servants, and those in the courts and really praise

You, God. In the good times and the bad times, knowing,

God, that You cause all things to work together for the good of Your people.

Father, as I was reading this week, you know, our focus as Americans can be on, you know, what's going on in America.

And yes, we need to be concerned. We need to pray for kings and governors,

God, that rule over us. But God, none of this means anything to You. What You're most concerned about,

God, Your heart is the gospel, is seeing people come to Christ.

We know from 2 Peter 3, God, that You have put off the return of Christ because Your will,

Your desire is that all come to Christ. And God, we pray that as a church family, you know,

Lord, as we think about our loved ones, I mean, some of us will be with unbelievers this holiday. We pray that You'd help us to be faithful, praying for the lost, that You'd help us to be salt and light.

God, to understand, Father, that the focus when we read all things work together for our good, it's for the good of believers, that no matter how difficult and challenging things may get in our country,

You're working for the good of believers, God, that You would be glorified, that Christ would be exalted.

Thank You for this day of worship. Thank You so much for Your people, we pray, in Jesus' name.