11/29/09 - Thanksgiving Sunday - Psalm 100

THE BLESSINGS WILL NEVER END

What blessings did you thank the Lord for this last Thursday? I would hope that you took time to thank the Lord on Thanksgiving Day for a whole variety of different things! Most of you probably thanked the Lord for the food he supplied for you that afternoon - that’s usually a popular item for which to give thanks because there is so much of it in front of us on that holiday. Most of you probably also thanked the Lord for the family and friends that were gathered around you - mainly because it’s a special blessing that doesn’t always happen on a regular basis. But what else did you thank the Lord for? What other blessings did you find deserving of a word of thanks to your God? The weather, a steady job, health, financial stability? But did you end up thanking him only for the blessings that were right in front of your face, or did you also thank him for the blessings that were yet to come?
It’s kind of a strange concept for most of us to thank the Lord for blessings that we do not yet have. Thanksgiving is usually something we reserve for those blessings that the Lord has already given us. But thanking the Lord for the gifts he will grant us in the future is a truth that Psalm 100 clearly teaches. Psalm 100 is entitled “A psalm for giving thanks” and the last two verses of this short song of Scripture are printed for you in your bulletins. I want you to look closely at these verses and see exactly what the psalmist thanks the Lord for. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” The psalmist realized that God had not only been good to him in the past, and not only had his love and his faithfulness been evident up to the very day he penned these verses, but God’s goodness and his love and his faithfulness would endure and continue forever. His grace would always be there. And so the blessings would never end. And that is exactly what Psalm 100 thanks the Lord for. It does not dwell on everything the Lord had done in the past or even what the Lord is doing at that very moment. The thanksgiving and the praises of these last two verses of Psalm 100 are focused on what the Lord has promised to do for us in the future.
That’s not something we are in habit of doing, is it? Because as sinful human beings living among other sin-polluted people in the middle of a sin-infected world, we have naturally become a little skeptical. We have come to realize that things do not usually turn out the way they are planned. Accidents happen, problems arise, unforeseen difficulties are inevitable and, in fact, they usually come at the worst possible times. The future is unpredictable. We don’t know what’s going to happen in our lives later today, let alone next week or next month or next year. And so thanking the Lord for the blessings he will continue to give us in the future is almost contrary to the way our minds work. How could we do that? How could we possibly thank the Lord for what’s to come when we don’t know what’s going to happen? What if I get sick? What if one of my family members dies? What if I lose my job or my car or my retirement savings? There are so many terrible things that could happen in the future that I wouldn’t want to give thanks for. And so we feel much more comfortable waiting to see what we get before we actually thank the Lord for it! It makes a lot more sense to us that way, doesn’t it? It’s a little safer (as far as we’re concerned) to thank the Lord after the fact than before it.
It is a very unfortunate thing that our past experiences with sin have hampered our trust in God. We have been burned so many times by the disappointments of this life that we have even become skeptical of what God promises for our future. As if his promises might not turn out the way he planned! As if the future is actually beyond the Lord’s control in some way! We find it so hard to be confident about what lies ahead even though God promises that he will always be good to his people, that his love will endure forever, and that his faithfulness will continue through all generations. And when we do hesitate to thank the Lord for what he promises to do for us in the future we are really implying that he is either not capable, he is not willing, or that he just has no idea what he’s talking about. And I understand that none of us would ever say those things about the Lord out loud, but our hesitation about the future reveals the weakness of our faith. If we aren’t confident about the blessings God has promised us in the future, what can we be confident about?
Because the fact of the matter is: if God promises to be just as good to us in the future as he has in the past, we have nothing to worry about! If God promises that his love will endure forever just as he has always shown his love to us in our lives, we have nothing to be skeptical about! If the Lord promises that his faithfulness will continue through all generations just as it has from the very first generation of Adam and Eve up to the present generation we are now living in, then we have no reason to hesitate to thank the Lord for what is to come! Because just think about the goodness and the love and the faithfulness the Lord has demonstrated on our behalf for the few thousand years this world has existed. When he didn’t have to, when he didn’t need to, when he wasn’t asked to, our Lord decided to create this world. Out of sheer goodness he made the various terrains and climates of this earth, the depth and clarity of the waters, and the vast expanses of the skies. He filled this universe with every living thing imaginable, every shade of color, every texture of fiber, every sound wave that affects our senses, and every shining star that we will never be able to reach. And he hand-crafted every bit of it just for us. So that we could live here and enjoy ourselves. So that we could experience his goodness in so many different ways on so many different levels. This same goodness is the goodness of God that he promises to show us as long as we live. What we will receive in the future will be just as good as what he has done for us in the past. That’s worth thanking the Lord for before it ever happens!
At a time when the Lord was not obligated to, during a period in history when the people of this earth hated him more then ever, God became a man. Out of pure love Jesus subjected himself to the pains and the evils and the dangers of this life. He followed the commands that he had at one time required us to keep, he took upon himself the punishment that we were supposed to receive, and he willingly experienced the death that we were scheduled to die. And he spent those 33 miserable years on this earth just for us. Because he loved us. He wanted us to live with him forever in heaven so badly that he was willing to die for us on this earth. This same love that he has demonstrated for us on the cross is the same love that he will show to us for years to come. That is worth thanking the Lord for before it ever happens!
At times when he never should have, in situations where he could have turned his back on his, the Lord forgave us. Every sin in every place in every way at every time - the Lord wiped away our sins. In fact, we have yet to commit a sin that has not been granted full forgiveness from God himself. And he has forgiven us every time out of unrelenting faithfulness. He has never gone back on his word to us and he has never let us down. This same faithfulness that has forgiven every sin we have every committed is the exact same faithfulness that will forgive every sin that we ever will commit. The nasty sins, the secret sins, the dirty sins, the repeated sins - they will all be forgiven because God is faithful. And he promises that his faithfulness will continue through all generations. That is worth thanking the Lord for before it ever happens!
The Lord’s goodness and love and faithfulness are not only blessings we have right now, they are blessings promised to us in the future. And whatever the Lord has promised us in the future is just as sure as if we had it in our hands right now. Whatever the Lord has planned for us tomorrow and next week and five years from now is something we can be absolutely sure will happen. Sure, the future may still be unpredictable. It may very well be filled with problems and troubles and disasters that are part of living in a sinful world. But the future looks good! Because it is all in the Lord’s hands. And he has promised us that he will continue to shower us with blessings just as he has in the past - whether we see them as blessings at the time or not. The Lord’s goodness and his love and his faithfulness will never end and so the blessings will never end. Yes, thank the Lord for what he has given you in the past. Thank the Lord for what he has blessed you with in the present. But don’t forget to thank the Lord for what he has promised to do for you in the future. He has promised you his goodness. He has promised you his love. He has promised you his faithfulness. And because of all those blessings he has promised you heaven. There is no greater blessing than that. Do not hesitate to thank him now for what you will receive then.
Amen.

“God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.” - Philippians 4:19-20