Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and it's my favorite holiday. In many ways, I think, at least historically, it's the most God-honoring holiday of which I am aware. Some friends of ours who were part of our congregation in Australia for a time and then moved to the U.S. were reflecting on their first Thanksgiving and the wife wrote these things. She wrote about the experience that they had to be celebrating Thanksgiving. She said, can I just say what a fantastic God-honoring holiday Thanksgiving is. To think that an entire nation sets aside one day to share a meal with family and loved ones and to take stock of the things in their life that they are thankful for. She says, it's brilliant and I agree. But as brilliant as the national day of Thanksgiving to which our nation is called year by year is, Thanksgiving is not a U.S. thing. It's what the people of God have been doing since there have been the people of God. And so open your Bibles with me, please, to Psalm 107. If the Lord is willing, five Lord's Day evenings over the next couple of months. We're going to go through Psalm 107 and look at it in the portions. We'll divide it up the same way it is in our book of Psalms for worship, just for ease of clarity. Psalm 105 and 106 and 107 are a bit of a trilogy, even though Psalm 107 comes after the break of the end of Book 4 of the Psalms and the beginning of Book 5 of the Psalms. And so even though there's that break, there's just a theme that kind of flows through them. Psalm 105 details Israel's experience from Abraham to the promised land. And as Jason already mentioned, Psalm 106 describes the unfaithfulness of the people of God from that time and on into exile from Babylon. And then it seems that Psalm 107 is a call of thanks to God for His delivery from exile. We're gonna read just the first nine verses this evening. And so listen as I read from God's word, may we be called to be thankful to Him. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their distress, in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men, for He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things. And we're gonna end there, but I'm actually gonna read a few more verses. Look at verse 15. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love and for His wondrous works to the children of men. Verse 21, let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men. Verse 31, let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men. We don't come away from Psalm 107 scratching our heads saying, I wonder what the psalmist had in mind. It's a call to us. Oh, give thanks. As we have come to God's word, let us come to him in prayer, thanking him for his word and asking for his help as we consider it together. Please join as I lead in prayer. Oh, Lord, we give you thanks. for Your wondrous deeds for the children of men. And we ask that You would carry us by Your Spirit, and that we might understand and apply Your Word, that it might change us in ways that we would reflect You more. May the words of my mouth and meditation of our heart together be pleasing in Your sight. We pray in the name of Jesus, our Redeemer. Amen. Psalm 107 is a call to give thanks, but it's not a call to give thanks primarily by way of command. Rather, it's a call to give thanks as the psalmist considers the wondrous works of God. It's a reminding of the people of God, of God's goodness to them. And so my aim and my hope is to call you to give thanks to the God as you remember the goodness of God to you, reflecting on his goodness historically, but broader than that, understanding his goodness to you. And so the call is, oh, give thanks. But to whom? Well, it's obvious. I mean, you're not dummies. Give thanks to the Lord. I mentioned that the Thanksgiving holiday, at least historically, is a God-honoring day. Obviously, as our culture turns more away from the Lord, that day becomes less God-honoring. But at least even in recent years, I haven't seen yet this year's national proclamation of Thanksgiving, but I expect that it will contain God language. that it will include this call to thanks to God. But more and more, the culture is turning away from that. My understanding that you can find elementary school textbooks that tell us that the first Thanksgiving was all about the pilgrims joining to give thanks to the Indians. Now I suspect they were thankful that the Indians had helped them stay alive instead of killing them as they came in and in a sense invaded their land. But the call to national thanksgiving has historically been a call to give thanks to God. I'd like to read a couple of phrases, a few phrases from the 1777 Continental Congress National Thanksgiving Proclamation. Listen to these words by the then government of these states. For as much as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God, to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to Him for benefits received, and to implore such further blessings as they stand in need of, and in having pleased Him in His abundant mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable bounties of His common providence, it is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States to set apart Thursday, the 18th day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise. that at one time and with one voice the good people may express their grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor, and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor and their humble and earnest supplication, that it may please God through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance, that it may please him graciously to afford his blessing on the governments of these states respectively, and prosper the public counsel of the whole. I get chills when I read those words, a declaration by the government of this land at one time, calling not only for a thankfulness to God, but a clear saving acknowledgment of Christ and of our forfeiture of any blessings for which we might give thanks. Give thanks to the Lord. You see, the natural response is not necessarily to give thanks to the Lord. It's to take the credit for ourselves or perhaps acknowledge someone else's assistance. A while back, I retweeted, that's a funny thing to say, but that's what it is. I retweeted a quote from G.K. Chesterton, and this is what it said. The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank. And I got a response on Twitter from I Am Atheist Pete. And he said, Ed Blackwood, what's your point? And I said, Peter, just that you deny the existence of the one whom you could thank for beauty and love and life. And he replied, well, thank your parents for giving birth to you so that you could witness that beauty and thank the one who loves you. And I wasn't sure that an ongoing conversation on Twitter was perhaps the best way to try to reach I Am Atheist Pete, and so I discontinued the conversation, but this is what I might have said. Who do you thank that you have parents? Who do you thank that you were born? Who do you thank that there is beauty? Who do you thank that there is someone who loves you? We're called here to remember that it's God to whom we owe thanks. Oh, give thanks to the Lord. But why? I see there's some younger children here as well as some older children, and you've probably once or twice, when your parents have given you an instruction, said, but why? Why? Well, that isn't always a bad question to ask, and it's probably often a good question for us parents to be answering even ahead of time. And the text here gives us some reasons. I'll suggest four. Why give thanks to God? First of all, for what I'll call His glorious perfection. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. And if you have computer access to the scripture and wanted to look up that phrase, give thanks to the Lord for He is good, You'd find it seven or so times in the English Bible. In 1 Chronicles 16, when the ark is brought and put in the tent that David had made for it. It's said again in Ezra 3.11, when the foundation of the temple is rebuilt. It begins Psalm 106, and it begins Psalm 107, and it begins Psalm 118, and it ends Psalm 118, and it begins Psalm 136. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. And no one, no one but God is good. God is light. In Him there is no darkness. God is holy, in Him there is no sin. God is truth, in Him there is no lie. God is good, in Him there is no evil. God is beautiful, in Him there is no ugliness. God is excellent, in Him there is no flaw. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. And this gloriously perfect God interacts with us, as we'll see in the text. If I could ask you for a minute just to imagine with me, but I want you to, I'm going to direct your imaginations. Take something that you enjoy doing, whether it's a course that you enjoy studying for, whether it's a sport that you enjoy playing, or some other skill, playing the piano, or sewing, or something that you enjoy doing. And then, if you will, think of someone who's a lot better than you at that. If you want to really stretch your imagination, think of the person who does that better than anyone else you can imagine. And then suppose that they came and knocked on your door and said, I'd like to help you get better. In fact, I'm going to give of my time. I'm going to spend time with you and help you learn that subject better, or that skill better, or that sport better. I'm just going to give of myself to help you do that. Wouldn't you be overflowing with gratitude toward them? And as extreme as an example as you could imagine, It pales in comparison to the reality that the God who is good cares to have a relationship with His people. And so the text calls us not only to give thanks to the Lord for His glorious perfection, but secondly, for His eternal affection. Give thanks to the Lord for His good, for His steadfast love endures forever. It's that Hebrew word that it's hard to translate in just one word. Many of your English Bibles might say, His steadfast love or His covenant love, His mercy, His loving kindness, His affection toward us is forever. Now, I know that some of you have experienced real loss. And those that I don't know, I expect that you have. Perhaps it's estranged family members, some of whom we prayed for earlier in the service. Divorce or abandonment. The death of a loved one. And when that happens, the love and the care and the affection that had been there is now gone. And God's mercy, God's loving kindness, God's steadfast love, God's affection toward us is forever. Forever. It never will fail. It never will end. He never will go weary of pouring out His affection on His people. It will never be withheld from the people of God. His loving kindness, His mercy, His affection will never not be there for you if you are Christ's. Give thanks to the Lord for His eternal affection toward you. And if you're here this evening and you don't know God in this way, if you don't know the affection of God, I plead with you, repent and believe the Gospel. Believe that God in His affection loved the world in such a way that He sent His own Son. And His Son was fully man and fully God, lived a perfect life, obeyed God in every way, and yet was crucified unjustly and received the wrath of God for the sins of all who had put their trust in Him. If you don't know God's eternal affection, I want you to be jealous because I do. And many in this room do, not because of us, but because God has chosen to pour out His affection on us. Or in the third reason to give thanks to God, God has granted us church-bound redemption, glorious perfection. Eternal affection, church-bound redemption. Now you say, well, I didn't see church. I didn't hear that. You must have a different translation. Well, we've got to understand the church in its Old Testament terms. God saves his people from isolation into his city, into the community of his people, into what we know fully in the New Testament is the church. Look in verse 4 and following. These people were wandering without a city. They were homeless in the truest sense. They were hungry and thirsty literally and emotionally and spiritually. They were fainting in their soul. And that's the picture of any apart from the affection of God in Christ. But in their distress, they cried out to the Lord. And He heard them in their distress and He gathered them from the north and from the south and from the east and from the west. One of the great joys for those of us who are at the seminary is when we worship God each class day in our time of chapel. is to see those from the north and the south and the east and the west. God has gathered people from different nations and from different backgrounds to worship Him. He's led them into His city for a dwelling place. Some of you know more keenly than others that spiritual wandering. Choosing over and over the wrong way. Looking for God and His love in all the wrong places, or more accurately, ignoring God and His love in all the wrong places. And yet God finds people in that lost state, and He gathers them together into His church. Christ died for His church, Ephesians 5 tells us. God saves into the church, Acts 2 tells us, those He is saving. God saved His people to be a people. Give thanks to God for your church-bound redemption. And then, fourthly, in the reasons to give thanks to God, because He alone gives soul satisfaction. That longing soul described in verse 9, what is it that you long for the most? And how have you tried to fill that longing? I have a friend who said, I'm going to church because I've tried everything else with no success. And when he began to do that, I had real hope that he would find Christ. You see, going to church isn't sufficient. You've got to come to church to hear the good news. As far as I know, he's a friend from Australia. As far as I know, he's still apart from Christ. He's quit going to church, as far as I know. He tries to fill the longing of his soul, the hunger of his soul, with all sorts of things. He's in his early 40s, he's been trying since he was 13. And he will tell you there's no satisfaction in his soul. And I told him again and again and again, Dan, turn to Christ. Dan, you're following a wicked master who hates you. Turn and submit to a master who loves His people. He will satisfy your soul. And don't believe the lie of the world that anything apart, anything other than God in Christ can satisfy your soul. I understand that there's a fairly good educational institution somewhere in the area here. You can get top marks, and you should, but it won't satisfy your soul. You can have a successful career, but it won't satisfy your soul. You can afford to buy all the things that the advertisements around us say will satisfy you, but they won't satisfy your soul. It's only in the Lord that there is soul satisfaction. Jesus saw the multitudes and He had compassion on them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. And so He said, Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, that's to submit to his ownership, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Why give thanks to the Lord? Perfection, affection, redemption, satisfaction. Oh, that men and women and boys and girls would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful deeds to the children of men. Well, that's who and that's why. But how? How do you give thanks? Well, you say it. You say it. Let the redeemed of the Lord, verse 2 says, say so. My dad says in his younger days they used to have as part of their church community, and I don't know exactly when these took place or how it worked, but they had say-so meetings. The redeemed of the Lord saying so. I suppose we'd call it a testimony time. I kind of like that idea of a say-so meeting. Let's get together and say so. Let's say the Lord has redeemed me. Let's give thanks to the Lord because He has redeemed me. You see, it's not enough for the people of God to be thankful in our hearts. God wants us to express our thankfulness with our mouths. To say that we're thankful. To say that we're redeemed. We need to say that to ourselves. We need to say that to each other. And we need to say that, as we were encouraged earlier in the service, to the lost around us. Why don't we more? Maybe we're embarrassed. Oh, you're just being religious. Maybe we see the inconsistency of our life and we think, how can I say I'm redeemed when I do things that redeemed people shouldn't do? Maybe we're too busy. Maybe we can't be bothered. Jesus healed ten. And one, a foreigner came and fell at his face. Give thanks to the Lord. And Jesus said, where are the nine? Are we sometimes the nine? Receive great goodness from God. And we fail to say to God and to those around us, I am thankful to the Lord for He has redeemed me. How do you give thanks? You say it. But secondly, how do you give thanks? You sing it. Did you know that this is a song? Of course you did. But I came across this advertisement this summer when we were in Kansas for our daughter's wedding. It says, the Bible has given us an incredible worship set. Many of the psalms are song lyrics to be sung, singing God's word to God. As groups of all ages study the Psalms together through Explore the Bible, they can sing the Psalms they are studying. Imagine your church studying the text in Bible study and singing some of the same texts in worship. Imagine that. Now, part of me giggles when I read that, just as you have. But part of me is thankful, even if they've never known that before. They're coming to understand something that we think is precious and wonderful. God has given us His songs to be sung. How do you give thanks to the Lord? You sing it. You sing this song and others in God's book of songs, given by Him for us to sing and to give Him thanks. The perfect God composed these words for His people to sing to Him as an expression of our soul. And sometimes it's in the singing that our soul changes. Perhaps you've had the experience. You come to church, you're out of sorts. The kids were difficult. They wouldn't get in the car on time. Your wife or your husband made you late or made you early. We were here at 20 till six. I mean, it's a long way away and we didn't want to be late. But sometimes you come to church and you're just a little bit out of sorts. But maybe you've had that wonderful experience that as you raise your voice in song with the people of God, your soul changes. And you're no longer just reading words on the page, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. Your soul is finding its satisfaction in the Lord. And you're booming out those words, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For He has done wonderful things for me. How do you give thanks to the Lord? You sing it. Our family is treasured going to Presbytery Camp or International Conference to join our voices with hundreds or thousands of others singing praise to God together. But even a small group can be encouraged as we sing together. And our singing in the congregation is directed to God and to each other. Ephesians 5, 18 and 19 and 20, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. When you sing, when we get up in a few minutes to sing this first portion of Psalm 107, you're going to sing it to God and you're going to sing it to the people in front of you and behind you. Now, you don't have to turn around. But I don't care if you do. Because part of our singing is to each other. Part of our singing is for me to say to you, God is great and He's done wonderful things and He's worthy of your praise. And part of your singing is to say to me, God is great and He's done wonderful things and He's worthy of praise. And of course together we say that to the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord by singing His praise. When I was in Australia, I participated in a group. I try not to identify them in case they would happen to ever hear a recording of this message. But once a week we got together and we did what we do. And I'll leave it at that. And after we did what we do, we got together and had a little bit of refreshments. And whenever there was somebody in the group that had a birthday, they sang happy birthday. and it was the worst singing you could possibly imagine. I mean, you hear that and you're chuckling, a few of you, but you can't imagine how bad it was. I mean, they were singing different tunes. They were singing different rhythms. They were, thankfully, singing the same words. I really, whenever that happened, I didn't even know how to join in, but I did my best. And it was horrible singing, but at the same time, it was wonderful. Because they didn't care if they couldn't sing well. They wanted to express love and affection toward this person to whom they were singing Happy Birthday. And so they belted out in all the wrong tunes, and all the wrong rhythm, and all separate. I mean, I should have recorded it so I could play it. I mean, it was stunning. But they wanted to sing. And maybe you don't sing that well. My mom didn't sing very well. She's in heaven now, and I suspect she does. But I miss singing God's praises with my mom. Because it didn't matter to her that she didn't sing very well. And so when we sing in a few minutes, if you feel like, eh, I don't sing very well, and I know this congregation has a lot of really good singers, I don't care, out sing them. Out sing them as an expression of your thankfulness to the God who has done great things for you. Let us sing our thanks to God for his goodness and for his wonderful works to men and women and boys and girls. Oh, that we would sing and say our thanks to the Lord for His goodness. Pray with me and then sing with me to His praise.