SPEAKER_00: We're currently message called one-word prayer.
SPEAKER_00: No, too often a lot our prayer life is built with me words.
SPEAKER_00: Words that actually prevent us from connecting and growing closer to God.
SPEAKER_00: In this series, we're focusing on four simple one-word prayers that will help anyone grow in our relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I hope today's message is an encouragement to you.
SPEAKER_00: After a child says their very first word, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandparents know that uh the work has just begun.
SPEAKER_00: Instantly a child's vocabulary begins to grow.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the first uh phrases, first two words that any parent wants to insert into their child's vocabulary are the words thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We teach our children to say thank you when food is served, and not just when the food that is served is food that you like.
SPEAKER_00: Say thank you for the chocolate cake and for the boiled cabbage that your grandmother worked so hard to prepare.
SPEAKER_00: We teach our children uh to say thank you for the gifts that they receive.
SPEAKER_00: The gifts that they like.
SPEAKER_00: That's easy enough.
SPEAKER_00: The bikes, the dolls, the video games.
SPEAKER_00: But you also need to say thank you for the gift that you didn't even ask for.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that hand-knit pea green turtleneck sweater that you unwrap from under the tree.
SPEAKER_00: And you should say thank you when someone offers you a compliment.
SPEAKER_00: Great job on the ball field, great job at the recital, and you can see that mom or dad look at their child and say, look them in the eye and say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: One reason parents teach their kids to say thank you is this right here.
SPEAKER_00: Saying thank you is a social norm, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's just good manners.
SPEAKER_00: It's polite to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And as a part of that social norm, it also, listen, it also reflects uh good on dear old mom and dad if their children say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to be known around El Dorado for raising a rude child.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people, they talk.
SPEAKER_00: But there's another reason that we teach our kids to say thank you, and it's actually a more important reason.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: Saying thank you is a relational necessity.
SPEAKER_00: Recently, a study was conducted at the University of North Carolina, and it discovered that saying thank you and other expressions of gratitude, they serve as some of the most important factors in the life of a person if that person wants to begin and to nurture lifelong relationships.
SPEAKER_00: The lead researcher on this project, her name is Sarah Algo, out of this project, she uh coined this phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: She said that thank you is relational glue.
SPEAKER_00: Relational glue.
SPEAKER_00: That phrase that tells us then that a thank you is what brings people together and holds people together.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you is relational glue because it recognizes the good things that someone else did for you.
SPEAKER_00: It sees the effort and the sacrifice that someone has made on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: It admits that another person has done for you things that you could not do on your own.
SPEAKER_00: And in the clip that we just watched, we saw the power of thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We saw it act as this relational glue as moms and dads looked into the eyes of their children and then embraced their children.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you in that moment brought a parent and a child together.
SPEAKER_00: And if over the next months and years and decades they continue to say thank you to each other, it's quite likely they can nurture a healthy, lifelong relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Saying thank you is a relational necessity.
SPEAKER_00: That principle, though, it's not only true of the relationship between a parent and a child.
SPEAKER_00: It's also true with regard to the relationship between a husband and his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Or it's also true among siblings or among groups of friends.
SPEAKER_00: This principle that saying thank you is a relational necessity is true of every relationship, and that includes your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite authors, his name is Dallas Willard, and Dallas puts it this way: he says, a healthy faith before God cannot be built and maintained without heartfelt celebration of his greatness and goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Let's leave that quote on the screen for just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: For some of us, our faith is in a state of ill health because we always ask God for more, more, more.
SPEAKER_00: And we never stop and say, thank you for what you've already given to me, for what you've already done in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I can only think of myself when I pray.
SPEAKER_00: I can only see my needs in this moment when I pray.
SPEAKER_00: And I never stop and say, thank you for all the ways you've already met my needs.
SPEAKER_00: Or Psalm 50, verse 23, puts it this way: Giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me.
SPEAKER_00: A person who honors God, that's a person who's nurturing a healthy, lifelong relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And according to Psalm 50, verse 23, that person knows it's so important to say thank you to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the sacrifice I give to God.
SPEAKER_00: It's what I offer to God every single day, because thank you is relational glue.
SPEAKER_00: But the opposite is also true.
SPEAKER_00: If thank you is relational glue, then the opposite of thank you is ingratitude.
SPEAKER_00: And if thank you brings people together, ingratitude forms a relational gap that pushes us apart.
SPEAKER_00: Most often, ingratitude is nothing more than an absence of words.
SPEAKER_00: And in the context of your relationship with God, that's when you fail to recognize the good things that God has already given to you.
SPEAKER_00: They go unspoken and unnoticed.
SPEAKER_00: It's when you don't say anything in your prayer life about Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You act as if the cross is not all that important.
SPEAKER_00: You've moved beyond the greatest sacrifice that the world has ever seen that was given for your sake and for the sake of the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: It's when a person sits in silence and never admits the countless ways throughout the day when God meets every need.
SPEAKER_00: He does something for you, and that something is something you couldn't do for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And when ingratitude persists in the life of a believer, a gap forms.
SPEAKER_00: And if that ingratitude, listen, if it persists for long enough, the gap becomes a cavern, that becomes a canyon, and then finally it just feels like you are totally distant and separated from God.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you this morning, maybe you're tired of that state of affairs.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be connected to God, you want to hear the heartbeat of your heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: Well, to be close and connected, you and I, we need to put another one-word prayer into our daily rotation.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, as a companion to these 21 days of prayer, we began a four-week series we're calling one-word prayers.
SPEAKER_00: One-word prayers, one-word simple prayers that allow us to draw close to God because these one-word prayers help us avoid often the meaningless words that we say.
SPEAKER_00: These one-word prayers allow us to focus not on what we gain from God, but just being with God and listening to the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: Our first one-word prayer was that word father.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray, Father, and we're reminded that God desires an intimate relationship, and He grants us instant access.
SPEAKER_00: And today's one-word prayer, you've probably already figured it out.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a one-word prayer that we have to put into a daily rotation because this one-word prayer is relational glue.
SPEAKER_00: It brings us close to God and holds us close to God.
SPEAKER_00: To learn how to incorporate thanks into our daily prayer life, we're going to look at Psalm 136 today.
SPEAKER_00: This is a psalm that's known as the great halel.
SPEAKER_00: That word halel, that Hebrew word, could be translated praise, so it could be called the great praise, or you could maybe even translate it the great thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And this psalm, what it does is it gives us the one true reason we pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God while we say thanks to God, and it's going to give us the recipe to how we can do it every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we're going to read Psalm 136 different than we normally read scripture together because we're actually going to read it together.
SPEAKER_00: So Psalm 136 contains a refrain, it contains a phrase that's repeated over and over.
SPEAKER_00: There it is.
SPEAKER_00: His faithful love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: So here's how we're going to read Psalm 136 together.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read the words that are in plain type.
SPEAKER_00: And then you as a congregation, we can do it, guys.
SPEAKER_00: You are going to respond.
SPEAKER_00: His faithful love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to try it before we go to verse 2, Will.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see if we can do this on verse 1, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Did y'all understand how we're going to read it?
SPEAKER_00: I'll read plain text.
SPEAKER_00: You, as one voice, the italicized text.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
SPEAKER_00: That was really good.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I need.
SPEAKER_00: I need, I also want to hear some emotion in your voice.
SPEAKER_00: That you've felt the love of God in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That you've encountered the love of God in your life, and you believe that his love is faithful and that it endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to do verse one one more time and then we're just going to keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the God of gods.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him who made the heavens so skillfully.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him who placed the earth among the waters.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him who made the heavenly lights.
SPEAKER_00: The sun to rule the day.
SPEAKER_00: And the moon and stars to rule the night.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him who killed the firstborn of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: He brought Israel out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: He acted with a strong hand and a powerful arm.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him who parted the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: He led Israel safely through.
SPEAKER_00: But he hurled Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him who led his people through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: He remembered us in our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: He saved us from our enemies.
SPEAKER_00: He gives food to every living thing.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, your love is faithful and it endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to us now as we reflect on your word.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Scholars of the Old Testament believe that Psalm 136 signals the return of God's people, that's the nation of Israel, to their home following the Babylonian exile.
SPEAKER_00: To be honest, it seems to me that's a peculiar moment in the life of Israel to offer the great thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're thankful because they finally are able to leave Babylon, but it took 70 years.
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: For 70 years they lived in a foreign land.
SPEAKER_00: For 70 years, God's people lived in a home that was not really their home, and the home that they wanted to live in, well, it was hundreds of miles away and it was lying in disrepair.
SPEAKER_00: It had been destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: For 70 years, God's people lived in a place, and it was this constant daily reminder that they had sinned against God and God had judged their sin and now they dealt with the consequences of that sin every single day.
SPEAKER_00: After 70 years, I'll be honest, I don't know if thanks is the first, second, or third word that comes out of my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: After 70 years, I maybe my prayer is a little bit more, you know, filled with complaints.
SPEAKER_00: God, I know 70 years, long time.
SPEAKER_00: Never liked the food.
SPEAKER_00: It's a list of disappointments.
SPEAKER_00: I tried to make a home in Babylon, but they wouldn't help me make my home in Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: It was a list of grievances against God, how you felt that he had failed you.
SPEAKER_00: When everything's going my way, when events turn out in my favor, I'm quick to say thank you to God.
SPEAKER_00: But when life is hard, when life is unfair, when the stress of life is unrelenting, thanks isn't the first, the second, or the third word that comes out of my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Which is why I, and maybe you so badly need the words, the instruction of Psalm 136, because the reason we say thanks, the reason we pray thanks is not connected to the circumstances of our life.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 136 teaches us the true reason we pray this one-word prayer of thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is the refrain.
SPEAKER_00: His faithful love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Most, if not all, modern English translations of the Bible obscure this point.
SPEAKER_00: In the Hebrew, before this refrain, his faithful love endures forever, there's a conjunction, a conjunction that could be translated because, or it could be translated for this reason.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the reason why.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord for this very reason.
SPEAKER_00: His love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He said that the sun in the sky for this very reason, his love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord, he saw me in my weakness for this very reason.
SPEAKER_00: His love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: The reason we pray thanks, the reason we give thanks and we say thanks to God every day, no matter the circumstances of our day, is because his faithful love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, his love goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: We pray thanks to God every day because his love lasts longer than the happiness of this moment or the pain of this season.
SPEAKER_00: We pray thanks to God every day because his love meets us in our greatest victory and it will comfort us in the moment of our greatest loss.
SPEAKER_00: And there are some in this room or some listening online who need to hear that.
SPEAKER_00: The reason you pray thanks is not because of the intense pain, the intense loss you feel right now.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the reason you pray thank you.
SPEAKER_00: But you can learn to pray thank you because God's faithful love will find you and it will meet you wherever you are and whatever you need.
SPEAKER_00: His faithful love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, the reason you got out of bed this morning just one more time is because his faithful love, it found you today.
SPEAKER_00: The reason you didn't give up, even though you wanted to give up, it's because his faithful love met you and it carried you.
SPEAKER_00: So pray thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason you're still clinging to just even a sliver of hope after all that's happened in your life, is because God's love goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: It endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: So pray.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And I promise if we as God's people learn to pray thanks, and that prayer of saying thanks is not the result or driven by circumstance, but it's in response to God's unconditional, unending, always eternal love for his children, for his family, for his church.
SPEAKER_00: We will grow closer and more connected to God because in that moment we will realize that God truly cares for each and every one of us, that he is concerned with all the intimate details of our life.
SPEAKER_00: His faithful love endures into our lives and into our homes and into this world.
SPEAKER_00: Where God's people are, his love is with them.
SPEAKER_00: Are you beginning to see why?
SPEAKER_00: Saying thank you is a relational necessity.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the context of our relationship with God, it's the way we begin to truly understand what it means to be loved by Him.
SPEAKER_00: And the quality and the character of his love for us.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the reason.
SPEAKER_00: The reason is the refrain.
SPEAKER_00: His faithful love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Let's now spend some time reflecting on the recipe.
SPEAKER_00: The recipe has kind of two major ingredients: God's attributes, that's his character qualities, who he is, and God's actions.
SPEAKER_00: Here are some of God's attributes that are either named or alluded to in Psalm 136.
SPEAKER_00: The first one, good, says, He is good.
SPEAKER_00: God is the original definition of good.
SPEAKER_00: He is good in and of himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is morally excellent.
SPEAKER_00: He is extraordinarily beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: He is deeply glad, and he is extravagantly generous.
SPEAKER_00: He is good.
SPEAKER_00: Another quality attribute of God we see is that he is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: It says that he is Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God is the one who is over all of creation.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one whose plans will never fail, who is bringing his purpose to bear on this world.
SPEAKER_00: Another attribute of God.
SPEAKER_00: If we go to the next slide that's mentioned, all powerful.
SPEAKER_00: It talks about mighty miracles and the one who made the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: Another one, the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful, who led his people through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: The next one.
SPEAKER_00: Kind.
SPEAKER_00: Remembered us in our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the ways I think that we begin to pray thanks on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: You read a passage like Psalm 136, read it aloud, read it with a friend, read it with a family member, read it by yourself, read that psalm, and then just sit in silence and you pray thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And you just let those attributes of God kind of fill your mind.
SPEAKER_00: That you are thankful for who God is.
SPEAKER_00: You pray thanks and you can see that he is good.
SPEAKER_00: And you just even feel that goodness in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: You pray thanks, and you just try to block everything else out of your mind, and you feel his kindness wash over you.
SPEAKER_00: You pray thanks and you see him for who he truly is, as we say that there will be one day when every knee will bow before Jesus because he is what?
SPEAKER_00: Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: When we sit in silence and we pray this one word prayer, thanks, we are reminded of these attributes of God and so many more.
SPEAKER_00: And in my life, often what happens when I pray thanks, and I'm reminded of the attributes of God is it then highlights my own limitations.
SPEAKER_00: I pray thanks, and I'm reminded how good God is, and I'm reminded that I'm not very good at all.
SPEAKER_00: Some days I'm okay, some days I'm mediocre, some days I'm downright bad, but good, man, that's I struggle to get there because there's only one who is good.
SPEAKER_00: His name is God, and I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Or when I think about God's sovereignty, I can hardly keep my own family organized and my own schedule outlined.
SPEAKER_00: I can't possibly be concerned with the events of the entire world or people throughout every generation on every continent who have ever lived or spoken.
SPEAKER_00: Or I strive to be faithful, but I let people down at disappoint.
SPEAKER_00: And kindness, wow, kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Pastors should always be kind, but there are days when pastors aren't kind.
SPEAKER_00: Someone pushes us over the edge, or we just wake up on the wrong side of the pillow.
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody else have those limitations in life, or is it just my therapy session?
SPEAKER_00: But when I pray thanks and I reflect on the attributes of God, I'm drawn closer to him because I'm reminded just how much I need him, how much I depend upon him.
SPEAKER_00: And then God, he proves those attributes to be true through his actions.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second ingredient of our recipe: God's actions.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 136 names actions of God.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are miraculous.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they're actions about God creating everything, creating all of the world, uh, setting the sun and moon and stars in their place.
SPEAKER_00: That's miraculous.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it references the story of the Exodus, how uh God miraculously defeated Pharaoh and delivered the nation of Israel, how God miraculously opened the waters of the Red Sea, how God led his people through the Red Sea and then helped them find the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the miraculous actions of God.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the actions of God that remind us that God is in the business of delivering and rescuing and saving people, that he saves them out of bondage, that he delivers them to a new home.
SPEAKER_00: And we say thank you for that work of salvation that is made possible to us through Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit living and dwelling in us and bringing us into relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: We say thank you for the miracles that God performs.
SPEAKER_00: But we also say thank you for some really mundane, simple things.
SPEAKER_00: I like it when the psalmist says this.
SPEAKER_00: He just says, give thanks to God.
SPEAKER_00: Um He gives every living thing the food that it needs to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Like just something everyday and simple.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that, every living thing, because of God, has the food that it needs to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Not just people, every living thing.
SPEAKER_00: So a squirrel gets an acorn, a deer has some corn, a cow has some grass, you've got some bread, somebody else has a steak, and somebody else has caviar.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of gross though, right?
SPEAKER_00: Every living thing has food, has something to eat because of God.
SPEAKER_00: That God set up this world to care for his creation.
SPEAKER_00: So the people will be fed and nourished and taken care of.
SPEAKER_00: And we say what?
SPEAKER_00: We say thanks to God, not just for the miraculous, but also for the mundane.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason God acts in these ways is because in verse 23 it says that He remembered us in our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: He remembered us in our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And for humanity, our greatest weakness is our habit of falling into the temps, temptations, and the traps of sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And in that weakness, knowing that we are weak, God did not turn his back on us.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: What did God do?
SPEAKER_00: He remembered us.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever you read scripture and it says that God remembered, I don't know about you, but sometimes I remember things and then I forget it, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's just a thought that passes through my brain, and the moment I think it, it's already gone.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I need to do something about that.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever have those moments?
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have your phone to put a reminder on it or type something in the notes?
SPEAKER_00: You remember something, I need to do something, and then you forget it again.
SPEAKER_00: But anytime God remembers in the Bible, do you know what he always does?
SPEAKER_00: He always acts.
SPEAKER_00: When God remembers, he acts upon the memory.
SPEAKER_00: He does something about what crosses his mind.
SPEAKER_00: And God remembered us.
SPEAKER_00: In our weakness, he saw us and he sent Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He remembered us and he came down to rescue us through the gift of his son.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, we say thank you to God for every gift, but especially for the gift of salvation that we have received through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We say thank you to God because we cannot comprehend, we cannot ever make fully make sense of what God has done for the world through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We say thank you to God because God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: The very Son of God paid the debt of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He carried it with him to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He died, he paid the debt of that sin, and then he rose again on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all things you can't do on your own.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do it on my own.
SPEAKER_00: No one can do it on their own except Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to God.
SPEAKER_00: He showed us his great love by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Saying thank you is a relational necessity.
SPEAKER_00: Because only a person who says thanks to God and then just sits and says, Thank you, thank you, thank you, has experienced the enduring eternal love of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Only if you pray thanks and sit and just sit and enjoy the presence of God, can you see God for who he truly is and what he has done?
SPEAKER_00: If you want to grow closer and more connected to God, you need to start praying thanks every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you want to start a relationship with God, if you want to start a relationship with God for what he's done for you and for the world through Jesus Christ, it also begins with a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: A prayer of putting your faith, putting your faith in faith or trust in Jesus Christ, confessing that he is Lord and Savior, saying, Jesus, I want to follow you and I want to accept your gift of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And I promise you this when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, very quickly your life will be filled with countless things that you can be thankful for.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stand together and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Our Heavenly Father, we say thanks this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking, God, as I pray thanks, reminded of that verse that just says, God is love.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for loving even when we pushed your love away.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for loving even to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: Death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: We pray thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I can be healed by him.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, that we can be in your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Have your way in this place through your spirit at work.
SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.