Give Thanks To The Lord

All right, well, if you do have a Bible, turn to Psalm 107, and we're going to be reading

Psalm 107 in its entirety. So if you would stand for the reading of God's word.

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His loving and devotion endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered from lands, from the east and the west, from the north and the south.

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no path to a city to which to dwell. They were hungry and thirsty.

Their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

He led them on a straight path to reach a city where they could live. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion and his wonders to the sons of men, for he satisfies the thirsty and he fills the hungry with good things.

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and chains, because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the

Most High. He humbled their hearts with hard labor. They stumbled and there was no one to help.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke away their chains.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion and his wonders to the sons of men, for he has broken down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of irons.

Fools in their rebellious ways and through their inequities suffered affliction. They loathed all food and drew near to the gate of death.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them.

He rescued them from the pit. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion and his wonders to the sons of men.

Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing. Others went out to the sea and ship, conducting their trades on the mighty waters.

They saw the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep, for he spoke and he raised a tempest that lifted the waves of the sea.

They mounted up to the heavens and sunk into the depths. Their courage melted in their anguish. They reeled and staggered like drunkards, and all their skill was useless.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He calmed the storm to a whisper, and the waves of the sea were hushed.

They rejoiced in the silence, and he guided them to the harbor they desired. Let them give thanks to the

Lord for his loving devotion and his wonders to the sons of men. Let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and praise him in the council of the elders.

He turns rivers into deserts, springs of water into thirsty ground, deserts into pools of water, and a dry land into flowing springs.

He causes the hungry to settle there that they may establish a city in which to dwell.

They sow fields and plant vineyards that yield a fruitful harvest. He blesses them, and they multiply greatly.

He does not let their herds diminish. When they are decreased and humbled by oppression, evil, and sorrow, he pours out contempt on noble and makes them wander in a trackless waste.

But he lifts the needy out of affliction and increases their families like flocks. The upright see and rejoice, and all iniquity shuts his mouth.

Let him who is wide pay heed of these things and consider the loving devotion of the

Lord. You may be seated. You know, it's difficult to imagine living in a time that is filled with, you know, more ingratitude than the time that we live in today.

And you think about the nature of the Christian life, or you think about the nature of the world that we live in, it seems to be a time that's uniquely filled with ingratitude.

It's a time that's uniquely filled with a lack of thanksgiving. And yet, as you read the

Bible, one of the things you'll realize is that a lack of gratitude is fundamentally symptomatic of the nature of the human condition.

This problem is as old as sin, essentially has been with us forever. Romans tells us that,

Romans 1 .18 tells us that a lack of gratitude is symptomatic of the nature of man's basic fundamental rebellion against God.

So Romans 1 .18 says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power, his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So there's a God who exists, he's real, he's revealed himself, and human beings have suppressed the knowledge of his existence and unrighteousness.

And so the text says, so they are without excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

So as we said, a lack of gratitude is fundamentally symptomatic of the nature of the human condition, but at the same time, we seem to be living in a remarkable period of ingratitude, particularly to the extent to which we have medicalized our ingratitude, and I think that this is something that is unique about the time that we live in today, meaning we have words and we have labels that we give to people that in their minds gives them a free pass to basically be ungrateful and unthankful.

So in terms of just some statistics, about 23 .8 % of adult women in 2023 had been or were treated for depression, so think about that, like that's in 2023, they had been or were treated for depression, and that is basically compared to, there's like about 11 .3

% of men who had been or were treated from depression. Those numbers are on the rise since 2017, where 17 .6

% of women had been or were being treated for depression, and 9 .3

% of men. So that's just like, you think about the nature of those statistics there and the nature of these labels, that's just people who have been treated for that formally by a psychologist or a medical doctor or something along those lines.

That says nothing about the nature of how widespread and rampant this fundamental problem of depression actually is among people today who would self -identify with labels along those lines.

So we have all sorts of labels like this to describe, to characterize people with, and what's remarkable about that is, you know,

I've really never met a depressed person who's characterized by Thanksgiving.

What I mean by that is just to say that every single person I've ever met who says that they're suffering from depression or they're afflicted with this word that many people understand to be some kind of quasi -medical disease,

I've never met that person like that who they're just constantly filled with Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving's on the lips of their mouth, everything that comes out of their mouth is thankfulness to God.

I mean, surely you've met people like that, the kind of people I've described that everything they say is something about thankfulness for God's providence in their life, for the good stuff, for the bad stuff, everything else.

So, you know, I've never met a depressed person who has been characterized by that. You know, I've met a lot of entitled, fussy, self -absorbed, depressed people.

And the fact that, you know, I've been one of those people myself. There was a significant period of my life where I would say that I suffered from depression, and during that time in my life, it was one of the most remarkable, self -absorbed times for me, personally, where all

I thought about was myself and my desires and the things I didn't have and the things I wanted and things that God hasn't done for me, and those are the kind of thoughts that filled my mind and filled my brain.

But then, when you read Psalm 107, it's difficult to think about a passage of scripture that is so filled with praise.

I mean, most of the psalms are filled with thanksgiving and praise. This is characteristic of the Psalms in general.

And, you know, when you think about these psalms, God has given them to us to teach us something about the nature of what it means to be a believer, to be a

Christian, and what seems to be so characteristic of these things is thankfulness from start to finish.

In this, you know, Psalm 107, it's basically just to give you a little bit of an idea about what's happening in the book.

You basically have this psalm that starts out with thanksgiving, and then it gives you four portraits of redemption.

And at each point, you know, there's thankfulness that's included at the end of these four portraits. And the thankfulness seems to reach a crescendo at the end to where you have sentence after sentence after sentence, a climax of thanksgiving at the end, and then we're given some sort of instruction there.

But this is a psalm among many things, which is meant to describe for us the foundation for Christian gratitude.

So if you think about this psalm, notice how it begins, and I'm reading out of the BSB. Psalm 107, one, give thanks to the

Lord, for he is good. His loving devotion endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered from the lands, from the east and west, and from the north and south.

Now, as I said, that's kind of a heading that's meant to tell you what the purpose of the psalm is. And the purpose of this psalm is to teach us how to give thanks, that's the purpose of it.

The purpose of the psalm is it starts with this admonition to give thanks to the

Lord. And fundamentally, when you think about the nature of the thanksgiving that we should be giving, thanksgiving in the

Christian life is fundamentally, it's grounded in the character of God and the works of God, most specifically in God's climactic acts of redemption in history, okay?

So notice what it says there. It says, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His loving devotion endures forever. His steadfast love, as it endures forever.

It says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, who he has redeemed from the hands of the enemy. And as you see at the beginning of this verse, thanksgiving is fundamentally, it's not grounded in particular in the first instance in favorable, positive circumstances.

That's what we think of when you think about what it means to be happy as a Christian. Typically you think what it means to be, like happiness, what is happiness?

Happiness in general, as we understand happiness to be, is most often just a involuntary response of joy in the presence of favorable circumstances or something along those lines.

And so as we're thinking about that, we're thinking about happiness as a fleeting emotion that seems to come and go, and then often as Christians we're tempted to think like happy is a good emotion and sad is a bad emotion.

And so then to the extent to which we're sad, that's bad, and happy is good. These are temptations that we face.

But then the issue here is just to say that in everything, like the Bible commands Christians in everything to give thanks for this will of God and Christ for you.

We should be giving thanks in everything, but fundamentally our thankfulness is grounded in the first instance in these climactic acts of redemption.

So verse two says, let the redeemed of the Lord sow who he has redeemed from the hand of enemy.

Now when you read the Old Testament, one of the things to realize is that the climactic act of redemption in the

Old Testament is the exodus from Egypt. Everything in the Old Testament is built upon this climactic act, fundamental act of redemption where God delivers his people from slavery from the

Egyptians, like he redeemed them. If you remember the events that surround the exodus, God redeemed his people, like he bought them back.

And a lot of this is pictured in the event surrounding the Passover where the

Israelites were told to spread blood on the doorpost of their house so that the angel of death would pass over their sons.

And then as you read the law, what you're gonna find is there's a lot of redemption language within the law that's related to this fundamental act of redemption in the

Old Covenant, and that is the act of God redeeming his people, bringing them out of Egypt, taking them out of slavery.

So the whole Old Testament is built upon this framework, and you're gonna see this coming up over and over and over again. In the law itself, you're gonna see these acts being celebrated, so there's feasts that are centered around remembering what

God has done for his people that are prescribed in the Old Testament. You're gonna see it in the historical books.

You're gonna see it in the prophets. This picture of redemption is basically the foundation for which all the thankfulness of the

Old Covenant saints is built, and then as Christians living in the New Covenant era, those events in the exodus ultimately are pointing to the redemption that Jesus has accomplished for us in his blood on the cross, okay?

So as Christians, these are, if you wanna think about the two climactic acts of redemption, you have the exodus, and then you have

Jesus' death on the cross for us, and these really form the foundation for Christian gratitude in general.

And what I mean by that is just to say that if you see these pictures, and if you understand these pictures as God has designed you to understand them, then you'll realize that most of your thanksgiving and gratitude is gonna be, in the first instance, gonna be centered around remembering what

God has done for you, and I mean, you can see that as you read through the Bible, you read through the Old Testament, so much of what was done in terms of just the festivals, the feasts, the monuments that they were built were centered around the

Israelites trying to remember what God has done for them as they're going forward into the future.

So think about this like what I'm trying to say is the foundation for Christian gratitude is going to be to remember these climactic acts of redemption to which

God has worked for his people, and as we're thinking about what's actually happening within the psalm itself, what you're gonna see is you're gonna see these four pictures, like these four portraits of redemption.

So if you just look down at your Bible for a minute, I'm gonna tell you where the boundary lines are with these four portraits of redemption, but one of them starts out in verse four, some wandered in desert wastelands finding no path for a city to dwell.

Then you can look at verse 10, sunset and darkness in the shadow of death, prisoners afflicted in irons and chains, and then you see in verse 17, fools in their rebellious ways and through their iniquities suffered afflictions, and then in verse 23, you see that others went out to the sea conducting their trade on the mighty waters, and so what you're gonna find in this passage is four portraits of redemption that we're gonna describe as four

Christ -centered reasons for thanksgiving, okay? So today we're gonna be talking about thanksgiving centered around God's mighty acts of redemption, and what we're gonna find is four

Christ -centered reasons for thanksgiving, the first of which is in verse four, as I said, and the reason is that Jesus satisfies the thirsty and he fills the hungry with good things.

So verse four, some wandered in desert wastelands finding no path to a city in which to dwell.

They were hungry and they were thirsty. Their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the

Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He led them on a straight path to reach a city where they could live.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion and his wonders to the sons of men for he satisfies the thirsty and he fills the hungry with good things.

Now, when you think about a passage like this, you think about a section like this, it's almost impossible not to think about Jesus and his bread of life discourse where Jesus describes himself as the bread of life in the new covenant, but certainly

I can think about my life before Christ and there is certainly a big part of that life before Christ that seemed to be filled with certain desires that I had that are desires that are spoken of in this passage itself that ultimately pointed to something greater than themself.

So as you think about this section, it's very easy just to think about it as a section describing

Jesus satisfying our hunger and thirst like Jesus is basically a source of satisfaction for us and that certainly is true, but then notice how that satisfaction is grounded in the fact that these individuals described in this passage are wanderers, right?

So it says that some wandered in desert wastelands and it says that they found no path to a city in which to dwell and the solution is, so they have the fundamental problem and this is gonna show up in every one of these portraits, there's this fundamental problem they have.

In this instance, they're wanderers and they're hungry and thirsty and their soul is fainting and they don't have a source of basic provisions that they need.

So in each instance, they're gonna cry out to the Lord and they're in trouble and God's going to respond to that and he's going to deliver them and so in this way, he led them on a straight path to a city with which they could live and then we're told to give thanks in light of that, but the issue is to say,

I could think back at my life before Christ and I wanted,

I mean, I obviously wanted all the basic things that everyone wants, like we're embodied creatures who have certain desires and a lot of the desires that you see within this passage are just central to the nature of the human condition, meaning we're embodied creatures, we need things like food, we need things like shelter, we need things like rest, right?

We long for homeland, right? We're longing for some sort of homeland, for people, some sort of community.

The Bible says it's not good for a man to be alone, but God's gonna provide a helper fit for him. So we're individuals that God has made and God has uniquely designed to long for some sort of place to call your own.

You have desires that are filled with, like desires for companionship, for fellowship, for city, for a place.

You have certain bodily needs that you have that you're looking, that just like your basic needs of hunger and thirst and all of these things are pointing to spiritual realities, meaning like when you think about your life, if you think about my life before Christ, you think about all these things, like the issue is that we're creatures who are made dependent upon our maker and God has put certain desires in our heart that ultimately are pointing to realities that are far greater than the things that like the physical manifestations that you see within this passage even.

And so, I mean, I do, I look back and I remember my life before Christ and I remember there was this search for some kind of meaning, search for some sort of satisfaction and I mean,

I look for it in everywhere you could imagine looking for it. I look for it in relationships. I look for it in pursuits like educational pursuits.

I look for satisfaction and meaning in entertainment and all of that, like all of that just ultimately, you get to the end of the road and you look in the mirror at the end of your day and you realize that it was all empty and it was all worthless because it didn't have any transcendent meaning.

It was, there was nothing to it, right? You just eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow you'll die.

Like they ultimately, like ultimately nothing that you do matters. You come to the same kind of conclusion the preacher concludes in Ecclesiastes is just to say that like hedonism as a pursuit, just pursuing pleasure, pursuing just your basic, go to work and get a paycheck, pursuing your basic things ultimately is gonna end up leaving you not satisfied because there's something more that you're designed to search after and what you're designed to search after is what you're gonna find in the scriptures.

You're meant to search after God. Like there's something that these physical realities are pointing to that's much greater than the things themselves.

So when you come to Christ, when Christ gives you new life, gives you meaning, gives you purpose, gives you his word, like he fills like ultimately that emptiness that can't be filled with any material earthly thing.

So for Christ and the reason for Thanksgiving, first that Jesus satisfies the thirsty and he fills the hungry with good things.

Second, Jesus sets the captives free. Verse 10, some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners afflicted in irons and chains because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the

Most High. He humbled their hearts with hard labor. They stumbled and there was no one there to help.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. He saved them from the distress. He brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death and broke away their chains.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion to the sons of men for he's broken down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.

Jesus has come to set captives free. I mean, again,

I think about my life before Christ and I remember looking at the words and the commands of scripture and thinking to myself that there's nothing

I can do to force myself to follow these things. Like the solution to my basic problem is not in me.

I mean, I couldn't will myself to want to obey God. I would look at the word of God and it was simply condemnation to me.

That's what it was. It was a book that revealed how far I had to go and I could look at these words and I remember distinctly thinking,

I don't know how to care. I don't know how to bring myself to care, to follow them at all.

Like, I mean, I have nothing within me. Like, I know that the path

I'm pursuing is a path to death. I know that and I could see the fruit of that and I could see the emptiness that comes from living a self -centered, hedonistic life and I see

God's righteous standard in his scripture and I can identify that as being good and I say

I'm a Christian, right? Like, I say that I believe these things but I can't bring myself to care.

I just love sin so much and I don't even know how to grieve over it, right?

Like the Bible says that godly sorrow produces repentance which leads to salvation without regret.

I don't know how to bring up those kind of, I don't know how to, I don't even know how to care.

I just don't care anymore but that, when you think about that kind of perspective, that's the kind of perspective that you see in the picture here so some sat in darkness in the shadow of death, prisoners and afflictions and changed, that described my life.

Men loved the darkness rather than the lights because their deeds were evil. So notice, like, they're sitting in darkness in the shadow of death, prisoners afflicted and changed because they had rebelled against the words of god.

Like sin promises you life, that's what it promises you. It promises you life, it promises you happiness.

I remember talking to an atheist friend many years ago now but I remember talking to an atheist friend trying to persuade him to turn to Christ, come be a

Christian and he just looked at me and he was honest, he said, you know, Tim, I don't want to turn to Christ because that means

I have to essentially give up my fornication, give up all these things. He made a list of things he didn't want to give up.

But the issue is like, these things, like, sin promises, it promises happiness, it promises life but when you go down that road, what you end up realizing is that that road leads to death, like it's a path to death.

And not only that, the further you go down that road, Romans says that lawlessness, like you're presenting, like those who present themselves, their members, as to sin, like it results in lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.

Meaning like we enter into life as being slaves to sin and the more that we give ourself over to sin, we are giving ourself over to further enslavement.

So meaning like you're hardening your heart against the things you know to be true, you're rejecting the law of God that's written on your heart.

The more that you give yourself over to sin, like the issue is that you're giving yourself over to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.

Meaning that you're going further and further down into the depths of the slavery of sin until you get to a point, like the issue is just to say that you can get to a point where there's just no hope, there's no light, there's nothing.

You're just, you're totally, completely given over to sin. You think about the society we live in right now.

We have given ourself over to such vices today in our society to the point where you can't even tell the difference between a man and a woman anymore.

We don't understand these basic things anymore. We're living in that kind of society. We're living in a society where people are pretending to be animals right now.

Like that, like we're living in that kind of society and I'm not trying to, I'm not saying that in order to say, hey, yes,

Christians, we're better than all that and it's us versus them or whatever else. Like the issue is you look around the world, you say this is where sin's gonna take you.

So whatever little sin you're cultivating in your own heart, in your own life today, sin never says enough.

You understand? Like there's never enough to it. Like it's gonna take you further than you ever thought that you would go.

It's going to take you to a place, like that's logically what it's doing. It's going to take you to a place where you are unrecognizable to yourself, where you've become so dehumanized to the point where you've given up the natural function of men and women.

You can't even tell the difference between you and some mindless beast. Like that's the nature of the problem that we face, the nature of the problem that's in our own heart.

I mean, sin will take you to a place where you will despise the person that you become and everyone around you will look upon you with contempt.

Like that's the issue. So sin is enslaving. Some sat in darkness in the shadow of death.

They were prisoners afflicted in their chains because they rebelled against the words of God.

They despised the counsel of the Most High and he humbled their hearts with hard labor. They stumbled and there was no one to help.

But then the message of hope that you see in the midst of every single one of these, and you notice this as we go along, you have people who are in the midst of impossible situations.

You have these wanderers that are wandering in the desert wasteland. They're hungry and thirsty.

They don't know where their source of food or provision, family, city, like safety, home, none of that's going to come from.

You have these prisoners who all they've known their whole life is slavery to sin. They've given themselves over to sin with impudence and they're trapped in the midst of a dark place with no light, no hope, no nothing.

And the answer at every time is they cry to the Lord in their distress and when they cry to the Lord in their distress, he hears them.

He fundamentally fixes their situation, you understand? He brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death.

He broke away their chains and the result of that is let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion and the wondrous works of the children of men.

He's broken down those impossible gates of iron. Like if the son sets you free, brothers and sisters, you will be free.

Indeed, Jesus came to set the captives free. He's come to deliver you from the slavery of sin. You don't have to be a slave of sin the whole rest of your life.

Christ has come to set you free from that. If you cry out to the Lord in the midst of your distress, but you have to admit like your condition, you have to admit the nature of where you're at and what sin has done for you, but Jesus, he will set you free.

He will break down these gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron and deliver you and redeem you.

Third, we see that Jesus rescues rebellious fools. Verse 17, fools in their rebellious ways and through their iniquities suffered affliction.

They loathed all food and they drew near to the gates of death.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. He saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word.

He healed them. He rescued them from the pit. Let them give thanks, Lord, for his loving devotion. His wonders to the sons have been.

Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. Declare his works with rejoicing.

Fools in their rebellious ways, they suffered iniquities and suffered afflictions.

So here's the thing. I mean, so you see the first picture is the picture of these wanderers without a city, without a home, who are hungry and thirsty.

They're at their wit's end. They don't know where to turn. They turn to the Lord. He helps them. The second, you see that there's these prisoners who are afflicted with iron and chains.

They rebelled against God. They're trapped. They're at their wit's end. They're in darkness. There's no light.

And then this third picture, you see these fools in their rebellious ways and through their iniquities, they suffered afflictions.

I mean, it's interesting to think about this passage with both of my family and Conley's passage families at the moment who are suffering affliction.

But I mean, you think about like when you're sick, when you're suffering affliction, you loathe all kind of food.

You get to this point where there's just nothing that satisfies you. There's nothing you want.

You don't want to take care of your basic needs. It's all become loathsome to you.

Like everything that's good in life turns into bad, right? So you think about the nature of the way

God's made you. He's made you to be a creature who's dependent upon food. I don't know if you think about that very much.

Like you can't even really go a day without eating. So God, like you can't even probably go a whole day without eating multiple times.

Most people, I think most people probably eat three times a day. But God's made you in such a way that you need food and food's meant to be like a source of nourishment for you.

It's not just meant to be gruel or something like that. It's something you enjoy. And it's something that God like says that he's gonna eat and drink with us in heaven when we get to heaven with him and we see him.

But like the issue is just to say that God's given like pleasures in life. And when you give yourself over to sin, like these pleasures, like food, drink, everything else, they become loathsome to you.

Meaning like sin fundamentally distorts your picture, distorts your perspective of life.

So you have fools and their rebellious ways. Like when you rebel against God in foolishness, you can look at our society, and you see just remarkable pictures of this very thing.

Like we're living in a society that has given itself over to sexual sin with impudence.

And you look around the world and you say, we've rejected the natural function of woman.

We've burned with lust, like men with men committing shameful acts with one another, receiving in themselves the due penalty for our errors.

Like we've taken everything good in life, and we treat it as if it's an affliction, you understand?

So everything, like that's what sin causes you to do. It changes your mind to such a degree that you think everything is good is bad, it's all backwards.

I mean, if you're an individual who has a family, like a larger family size, you go into stores today and you'll get comments, you know, without, on a fairly regular basis, where people will look at all the signs of life in your life, you understand?

Like the children are a sign of life, they're a sign of blessing in your society. They're gonna look at that, and they're gonna despise that.

And they're gonna say, hey, you know what causes that, right? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, right? But I mean, like the issue is to say that we look at children as if children are bad, but then we praise people who just get a bunch of pets instead of just getting married, going out and getting married and everything else.

We think that animals are better than people, and so we're living in a society right now who has elevated beast above man, so you're gonna get any number of praise if you go out and get pets, but then if you have kids, you're gonna be seen as choosing the poor life, right?

Like the worst life that you can get. Like they're gonna be standing in the way of your own individual expression, like self -expression and everything else.

But like the same thing is true of everything else. Like we despise marriage, we despise kids, we despise family, we despise the good in every single way, so we're fools who in our rebellious way, as individuals living inside, we're fools in our rebellious ways, like loathing all the good in this life.

You understand? And that's what sin's gonna cause you to do. It's gonna cause you to loathe the good things. Like we're not even gonna, we're at a point in our society where we're below replacement rate in our population right now, because we loathe what's good, and we love what's bad in our society right now, and it results in all sorts of afflictions that we're going to suffer.

I mean, you think about the nature of, like the path that is promised to you.

If you live in the way that the world tells you to live, like the issue is they're telling you what's important, and if you follow them down that road, like the issue is you're choosing death over life at every single area.

So like we're living in a society that thinks that the good is going to be found in unrestricted perversion where the result of that, we're killing babies like without conscience.

We're shouting our abortions. We're proud of our iniquity at this point.

We're killing all the good because we loathe the good, and then we're suffering all the consequences of that.

So we're the most like medicated society in the history of the world. We've turned to all sorts of drugs in order to help us to just handle the basic issues of life because at the end of the day, we're pursuing like a path towards death, and we're reaping the consequences of that, and the consequences of that is that we're like mentally unstable as a society.

We're mentally unable to handle the basic issues of life because we've chosen, like we believe the lies of the enemy, and we've internalized those things, and we've adopted like all the standards of the fool in this way.

So we're living in a foolish society, and we're fools ourself, you understand? Like we're tempted to be fools.

We're tempted to believe the lies that we're being taught in the society that we're living, and the end result of that is that we despise the good, and we suffer afflictions as a result of all this, but the good news is that they cried to the

Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent his word, and he healed them.

You know, it's amazing like to think about my life before Christ, and there were times,

I mean, there were literally times where I was so depressed before coming to know the Lord that I would think

I was sick, and I went to the doctor. Like I was so filled with worry, so filled with anxiety.

Go to the doctor, and I'd ask them to tell me what was wrong with me because I had physical manifestations of sickness, and the doctor would run all of his tests and say, hey, there's nothing wrong with you.

It's like there has to be something wrong with me. I feel terrible. You know, I'm not sleeping and all that kind of stuff. It's like there's nothing wrong with you.

Are you depressed? It's like, yeah, I'm depressed, and like that's what, like the issue is the way of the transgressor is hard, and if you give yourself over to folly, you give yourself over to foolishness, you're not gonna come out unscathed.

If you walk in the way of the unrighteous, you're going to experience all of this, right?

So fools in the rebellious way, through their iniquities, they suffered affliction. They loathed all food.

They drew near to the gates, but they cried to the Lord in their distress. He saved them from it, and he sent his word.

He healed them, and as a result, let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion, his wonders to the sons of men.

So fourth thing here, fourth Christ -centered reasons for Thanksgiving is that Jesus calms the storm.

So others went out to the sea in ships, conducting trade on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the

Lord, his wonders in the deep. For he spoke, and he raised a tempest that lifted the waves of the sea.

They mounted up to the heavens, and they sunk to the depths. That's just a picture of what it means to be in the midst of a storm in a tempest.

So they mounted up in the heavens. That's the ship going up on a wave, and they sunk down into the deep.

That's the ship going back down. So notice their courage melted in their anguish.

They reeled and staggered like drunkards, and their skill was useless. So Jesus calms the storms.

Now, one of the means that God uses to wake people up in life is often trials, and it's interesting that God doesn't try to distance himself from the trials that he sends.

If you think about the nature of the Christian God of the Bible, the God of the Bible is sovereign.

He's sovereign over all creation. There's nothing that can happen in all of creation that happens apart from his sovereignty, you understand?

You read through the Bible, and one of the things you're gonna see is that God, he changes times and seasons.

He's not a deistic God who just set the world up, like set up natural laws that operate independently of his control.

He didn't just kind of make a world, take a step back, and wind up the clock or whatever, and let it run on its own.

That's not the kind of God that we serve. Like Jesus, he upholds the universe by the word of his power, okay?

So God is changing times and seasons. He's causing the rain to fall on the just.

Like this isn't just like a water cycle or something like that. Jesus is causing the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Like he raises up kings. He removes kings. Like God gives people favor and compassion in the sight of other people.

He can take away that favor and compassion in the sight of other people. Like these, it's interesting because I remember like Hurricane Katrina, if you remember

Hurricane Katrina came a few years back and destroyed New Orleans, it's probably been a lot longer than I realize, and I'm dating myself by even saying that.

But at this point, it seems like a recent thing for some reason. Don't look that up.

But I think it was Pat Robertson or something who said that Hurricane Katrina was

God's judgment against New Orleans because of their sexual immorality or something along those lines, and that caused a great stir amongst individuals.

But like the issue is like I don't know whether or not that specific storm was an act of judgment against that specific sin.

But I do know that God sends storms as a judgment of sin.

You understand like we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that God sends like these reminders of the fact that we're death row inmates like who are living on borrowed time, right?

So like that's who we are. We're creatures who have rebelled against our maker, and there are consequences to that.

There's not gonna be any storms and tempests in heaven. Like you understand, in the new heaven, new earth, we're not gonna be experiencing these trials like that are designed to remind us of our fallen condition and be like means of purification for God's people.

But like the issue is just to say that when a storm comes, that's God. When an earthquake comes,

God did that. He's not trying to distance himself from doing it. He's not just up there just as sad as you are and wish he could do something about it.

Like God sends those earthquakes. He sends those storms as a reminder of our basic fundamental condition, as it's judgment against us, right?

And the fact that we have sunburns is a result of the reality that you're living in a fallen world.

Like there are thorns and there are thistles that have sprung up the work, and your work of the ground has become harder.

Pain has been introduced into the human condition. There's pain and childbearing. All these things are the result of God's sovereignty, and he's not trying to distance himself from it.

He's not trying to get himself off the hook. So you have in this example, you have others went out to sea in ships conducting their trade on the mighty waters.

Those individuals, they had lives just like you have lives. They're going about their business. They have their lives.

They're doing, there's no indication in the passage that they're doing anything wrong by going out on the sea in order to conduct trade on the waters.

But then the issue is that God sent a storm in there to fundamentally shake the nature of their confidence in what they're even doing, right?

So he spoke and he raised a tempest. That's active language.

That's not passive language. He spoke and he raised a tempest that lifted the waves of the sea.

And so they mounted up in the heavens, sunk down to the depths. Their courage melted in their anguish.

They were met with a terrifying power, not of like nature on its own. They were met with the terrifying power of God.

A few nights back, there was thunder and my daughter was in a room and she was scared.

She was scared of the thunder. And I was like, hey, honey, like it's just a sound.

And she goes, but it's scary. It's scary. But I mean, you think about that. And I was trying to like explain to her with logic and reason that, you know, loud noise is just a loud noise, you know, kind of thing.

She's not gonna get struck by lightning in the house or something like that. It's not gonna zap her or whatever. I was trying to explain what these things are.

But like imagine yourself in the middle of the night, not protected by a house or something like that with a thunderstorm around you.

I mean, I've been in situations like that to where I'm out in the open and all of a sudden rain is pouring down and there's lightning bolts.

And that can be a pretty terrifying thing, like to be caught in the midst of a storm, okay?

Like knowing that like you're going about your business and your life is utterly out of your hands, right?

You think that today was just gonna be a normal day, just like everything else. Recently, I had an event happen to me where I was,

I think I had gotten a virus essentially that had, I was driving on the highway doing my job and all of a sudden

I started getting dizzy and weak and feeling some heart pain. And like I passed out while I was driving on the road and ended up in the middle of the intersection.

And I can tell you that that event was an event that let me know loud and clear that I'm not nearly as in control of my life as what

I thought. Like there's nothing like something like that happening to wake you up and to realize that I didn't get up in that morning and plan to pass out while driving and hit an interstate wall.

I didn't think that was, that wasn't on my bingo card or whatever. Like that wasn't the plan.

That wasn't something I set out to do. And like these individuals, they're on their ship going about their daily business, doing their job, right?

God sends a storm. God's not getting himself off the hook. God sent that storm to wake them up and make them realize that life is fragile and it can end in an instant.

Like you're not promised tomorrow. God hasn't promised you a long, healthy life with a long, like with family who's healthy.

He hasn't promised you that you're just gonna get through life and everything's gonna be okay and that no one in your family is ever gonna die.

You're not gonna have to suffer any kind of debilitating sickness, illness, death. God hasn't promised you a problem -free life.

He hasn't made those kind of promises. But many of us, we don't wanna think about those things. You don't wanna think about the fact that your life could go very differently than it is going right now.

Like you don't wanna think about those things like sickness, death, suffering, kidnapping.

Like there's difficult things in life, like God could introduce into your circumstances something that is completely outside of anything that you expected.

And that's the world that you're living. You're not promised tomorrow. But then the issue is to say that God can and does frequently do that in order to wake people up about the basic nature, like a fundamental nature of what life is meant to be on Earth, right?

Like meaning that like we're, everything in your life is not just about like the here and now and the things that you're doing, right, the routines that you've established.

Like there is more to life than just getting up, going to work, doing your job, coming back home, eating, you know, eating and drinking.

I saw a internet video recently where a guy was trying to give a picture of his life or whatever and he basically got up in the morning and ate and then he drove to work and I think at some point he exercised and then came back home from work or he went and got his fast food at lunch or whatever and then came back home at night and ate again and then he went to bed and that was his life, right?

But I'm trying to say that brothers and sisters, like there's more to life than that. God, like God made you. God exists,

God's real, he made you. He's given you a purpose and his purpose fundamentally is to know you and there's more to the here and now than just the routines that we've established and we think we can just live our life, go about our business, do the things that we do every day but when

God sends a trial your way, it says they reeled and they staggered like drunkards and all their skill was useless.

Like God put them in a situation where they had like everything, like every confidence that they may think they have in of themself and their own ability to do their daily business, it was bankrupt.

It didn't, it turned up empty. Like there was nothing they could do. They're in the midst of a situation that there is no hope and God frequently does that with us and like the issue is just to say that God backed them in a corner, they cried out to the

Lord in their trouble, he brought them out of their distress, he calmed the storm to a whisper.

Like God's not some charismatic prophet pretending to calm the storms, like he actually calmed them.

You understand? Like God actually calmed the storms. You take an impossible situation where you're in the midst of a storm, seas are calmed to a whisper.

Waves of the sea were hushed. They rejoiced in the silence and he guided them to the harbor they desired.

There's no way, you're not getting anywhere that God wants you to go unless he lets you go and he can introduce into any of your plans roadblocks that you can't imagine.

But notice how the passage ends. So as I said, this is a passage about Thanksgiving, right, give thanks to the

Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, who is redeemed from trouble. You get these four pictures.

You have the end of it, like the situation, right? They like, using the language of the judges, they cried out to the

Lord in their distress, he healed them and then you get the let them give thanks portion of this. Notice how it goes, like notice what happens here, like this is the climax of Thanksgiving in the passage and notice how it just goes on and on and on, whereas before it was like a verse or two, right?

Here it just goes on and on, it says, let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving devotion, this is verse 31, for his wonders to the sons have been, let them exalt in the assembly of the people, praise them in the council of the elders.

He turns rivers into deserts, springs of water into thirsty grounds, he can fix whatever situation you're in, he can change it, it may seem hopeless, he knows what he's doing, right?

He turns rivers into deserts, he can make it go worse than what it is, he can make it go better than what it is, fixing your problems is absolutely nothing, like requires no work and no effort to the kind of God that we serve.

The most insurmountable problem that you think you're going through today, he can fix it without a thought, like just like that, it's nothing to him, like he can fix it if he wants, like he's that kind of God.

He turns rivers into deserts, springs of water into thirsty ground, fruitful land into fields of salt because of the wickedness of his dwellers.

He turns the deserts into pools of water and a dry land into flowing springs, he causes the hungry to settle there that they may establish a city in which to dwell, you remember that from the first verse, or the first section.

They sow their fields and plant vineyards that yield a fruitful harvest, he blesses them, right, so everything we have is a gift from him, it's his common grace towards everyone or his fatherly care towards his people.

He blesses them, they multiply greatly, he does not let their herds diminish when they are deceased and humbled by oppression, evil, and sorrow, he pours out contempt on nobles and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland, you know, there's a way of, seems right under man, but its end, it leads to death, but he lifts the needy out of afflictions and increases their families like flocks, the upright see and rejoice and all iniquity shuts its mouth.

So here's the thing, the text tells us that there's this call that we have to Christian gratitude, verse 43, let him who is wise pay heed to these things and consider the loving devotion of the

Lord. Think about the nature of your life.

God has given us so much that we reject and we respurn, but there are these climactic acts of redemption that he's accomplished for us, you understand?

Like we serve an all -powerful God who is intimately involved in all the details of your life, he has done a mighty work, he's done a mighty work for his people in the old covenant, delivering them out of Egypt, he's done a mighty work for us in sending

Jesus Christ on the cross to fundamentally fix the nature of our problem and Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection has implications for our fundamental standing with God, we've been set free from the penalty of sin, we've been set free from the power of sin, we've been delivered from slavery, we've now been made, been given a righteous, like an imputed righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, you're attributed to us as a free gift, we're given an imparted righteousness, like he is a source of satisfaction for us, he is living water, he has given us his word to help us to know how to live our lives, how to understand the things that are happening to us, you look at your life, you look at what

Jesus has done for you, we as Christians, we have every reason, like here's the point, we have every reason for gratitude on the basis of all that God has done, all that he is able to do, and most importantly, what he's done for us in the work of Jesus on the cross on our behalf,

Christians, we should be thankful people and God's given us every reason to give thanks. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for what you've done for us, sending

Jesus to do for us what we can't do, Lord, we know that the way of the transgressor is hard and that sin ultimately leads to death and slavery and misery, affliction, suffering,

Lord, we know that sin promises life, but delivers death, we know that you have come to give us life and to give us life more abundantly,

Lord, we thank you for what you've done for us, we pray that you help us to be the kind of people whose lives demonstrate thankfulness that is contagious,

Lord, we pray that you help us to be the kind of individuals who have praise on our lips and thanksgiving in our heart and we know that you're able to do that because of the mighty work in which you've done in Jesus.