David Parker: All righty, heavenly Father.
David Parker: What a blessing it is that we get to be called your people, and as your people, we are so grateful that you meet us where we are, father.
David Parker: What we do not know, teach us what we have not, give us and what we are not, kindly make us for your Son's sake, amen.
David Parker: I've entitled tonight's message A Recipe for True Thankfulness.
David Parker: A Recipe for True Thankfulness.
David Parker: This will just be a brief meditation.
David Parker: I don't hope to be too long.
David Parker: As followers of Jesus Christ, we are constantly called to give thanks and to be thankful and to be thankful.
David Parker: 1 Corinthians 5, 16-18,.
David Parker: Paul writes Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks and everything, for this is God's will for you.
David Parker: Colossians 3, 15,.
David Parker: And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts and be thankful.
David Parker: Ephesians 5, verses 18 through 20.
David Parker: And don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord, jesus Christ.
David Parker: If you were to ask me, david, what are you grateful for?
David Parker: I'd tell you that I'm grateful for my lovely and beautiful wife.
David Parker: I'd tell you that I'm grateful for the apartment that we're now staying in.
David Parker: I tell you that I'm grateful for my church family, my pastors and elders.
David Parker: I'm grateful for the strength of my youth.
David Parker: And if someone were to ask you, what are you thankful for?
David Parker: What would you say?
David Parker: Is being thankful simply acknowledging the things or the people that we appreciate?
David Parker: Is it only recognizing the things that make us the most happy?
David Parker: While it is not at all wrong to recognize the good things we receive in this life, true thankfulness is much more than this.
David Parker: If you have a Bible with you, turn with me to Psalm 100.
David Parker: If you'd like to look in the Pew Bible, you can turn to page 526.
David Parker: This is a very popular psalm of Thanksgiving, and the hymn that we'll be singing after this message is inspired from this psalm.
David Parker: Our focus this evening will mainly be on one verse, but before jumping into that one verse, I will read the whole passage Psalm 100, page 526.
David Parker: Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord.
David Parker: Serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs, acknowledge that the Lord is God.
David Parker: He made us and we are his.
David Parker: His people, the sheep of his pasture, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
David Parker: Give thanks to him and bless his name, for the lord is good and his faithful love endures forever, his faithfulness through all generations.
David Parker: Now I know a lot of us are cooking for Thanksgiving and, as I said in the title, I just wanted to offer a recipe for thankfulness.
David Parker: And as we look at verse 3 this evening, we're going to find three ingredients for true thankfulness.
David Parker: Find three ingredients for true thankfulness.
David Parker: And ingredient number one for true thankfulness is acknowledging that the Lord is God.
David Parker: True thankfulness consists of acknowledging that the Lord is sovereign.
David Parker: This ingredient is not just necessary for true thankfulness, but is also an absolutely foundational ingredient to our Christian faith.
David Parker: To acknowledge that the Lord is sovereign is to understand that the whole world in the universe as we know it did not come into existence by some cosmic accident.
David Parker: Everything that has happened is happening or will happen.
David Parker: Good or bad are not mysterious coincidences.
David Parker: But rather, to acknowledge the Lord as sovereign is to recognize there is only one God, who is above all, through all and in all, and that from him and through him and to him are all things.
David Parker: In other words, all things start with God, all things are sustained by God and all things finish with God.
David Parker: Essentially, understanding God as sovereign puts him at the center of everything.
David Parker: One of the things that makes the sovereignty of God a difficult subject is that it removes us from the center of our lives.
David Parker: We, by nature, love to make everything about us.
David Parker: To admit that the Lord is sovereign is to admit that we are not, or, to borrow the words of my grandmother, it's God's agenda, not ours.
David Parker: However, recognizing the sovereignty of God does not mean we have absolutely no agency in our life.
David Parker: In our lives, when we wake up in the morning, we get to choose what we want for breakfast.
David Parker: We can choose whether we want to kiss our spouse before we leave for work, can choose whether we want to kiss her spouse before we leave for work.
David Parker: All of us are here because we made the decision to be here, but at the same time, none of us chose the year we would be born, the family we would be born into or what bodily features we have.
David Parker: None of us planned exactly just how our life would turn out.
David Parker: Ji Packer said that men treat God's sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is a matter for worship and, in light of our passage and meditation for this evening, god's sovereignty is a matter for true thankfulness.
David Parker: Being truly thankful isn't really about looking within ourselves or even to the immediate people or situations around us.
David Parker: While those things can serve as starting points for thankfulness, true thankfulness causes us to look beyond the immediate and to acknowledge that there is a God who rules and is in control of all things.
David Parker: Now, a big question that often comes up when discussing the sovereignty of God is the question of suffering.
David Parker: Why does God allow suffering?
David Parker: How can one be thankful for the sovereignty of God when God does not take away the suffering one is experiencing?
David Parker: I'm sure all of us have wrestled with this question.
David Parker: My wife and I just dealt with this question last week while spending some time with my sister.
David Parker: This has been a constant question of hers because she feels that she's met with struggle after struggle and, from her perspective, it seems that God doesn't want her to be happy Again.
David Parker: I'm sure many of us have had the same thoughts in light of challenging seasons.
David Parker: So much can really be said on this subject, but I think the heart of this matter is perfectly expressed in these words that Pastor Doug gave, actually in a sermon from the book of Job some months ago, and this is what he said.
David Parker: There are aspects about reality that have a spiritual explanation, that are outside of our understanding.
David Parker: And can you continue to trust a God who doesn't give you an answer to your why?
David Parker: Can you trust God to have a better reason than you can understand?
David Parker: While Scripture is clear about the reality of suffering and pain in this world, scripture is also unmistakably clear on why we can and ought to trust in the Lord.
David Parker: Just look at verse 5 of Psalm 100.
David Parker: For the Lord is good and his faithful love endures forever.
David Parker: What we are often so quick to assume is that we are the ones who are good and therefore we shouldn't have to endure suffering.
David Parker: But in reality, brothers and sisters, there is no one who does good, not even one.
David Parker: God does not owe us anything, owe us anything.
David Parker: On one hand, suffering is very real, which can lead to the question what did I do to deserve such things?
David Parker: But, on the other hand, the goodness of God's sovereign rule is also very real, which should lead to the same question about all the good things that we have received.
David Parker: What did I do to deserve such good things?
David Parker: The first ingredient of true thankfulness consists of knowing that the Lord is sovereign.
David Parker: I acknowledge that the Lord is God.
David Parker: He made us and we are His, his people, in the shape of His pasture.
David Parker: The second ingredient for true thankfulness is acknowledging that God made us.
David Parker: True thankfulness acknowledges God as creator, and I'm not focusing so much on God as creator of things, but rather God as creator of people.
David Parker: One of the very first songs or lines of poetry that we see in scripture was Adam's response to God for creating Eve for him.
David Parker: Adam could have rejoiced over the absolute beauty and freshness of God's creation the earth, the skies and the animals.
David Parker: Creation, the earth, the skies and the animals.
David Parker: But what really stirred Adam to praise and thanksgiving was when he realized that God made someone for him.
David Parker: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
David Parker: Brothers and sisters, it's a simple but profound truth that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
David Parker: In his marriage book, paul David Tripp summarizes this best.
David Parker: He said God created every aspect of your personhood.
David Parker: He administered every choice of your hard wiring.
David Parker: He determined how tall you would be, whether you would tend to gain weight, the color of your eyes, the texture of your hair, the shape of your nose, the size of your hands, the tone of your voice, your innate personality, your natural gifts, the tone of your skin, your natural degree or physicality or athleticism, or whether you are mechanical, analytical or relational.
David Parker: All these choices were made by the divine artist, who has infinite creativity.
David Parker: It's one thing to be thankful for a person or for people, but it's quite a different thing to be thankful for a person in light of the fact that God has made them.
David Parker: And here's why we generally understand that the value of an item is often based on the brand it has attached to it.
David Parker: For an example, you can go to Walmart, look for a bag, purchase it for about $20 to $25.
David Parker: But then, if you find a similar bag that has a Gucci or Prada label attached to it, that bag is worth about 20 times more.
David Parker: God did not just make us, like he did the rest of his creatures, but instead he has branded every single one of us with his image.
David Parker: Our value as people is not based on what we have to offer the world, but rather that each of us have been created in the image of God, but rather, that each of us have been created in the image of God.
David Parker: When we acknowledge God as creator, true thankfulness comes from the fact that we have a given identity by God himself and that given identity and with that given identity is a sense of purpose that we do not have to try to create for ourselves.
David Parker: The second ingredient for true thankfulness is acknowledging God as creator.
David Parker: Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
David Parker: He made us and we are his, his people, the sheep of his pasture.
David Parker: The last ingredient for true thankfulness is acknowledging that we belong to him.
David Parker: We are the sheep of His pasture.
David Parker: True thankfulness acknowledges God as Redeemer.
David Parker: So many people don't realize that God made us for Himself.
David Parker: The reason why so many people think we have the right to do whatever we want with our lives or bodies is because we do not realize that we actually don't belong to ourselves.
David Parker: We actually belong to the Lord.
David Parker: When people run to things like drugs and sex and money as a means of coping with the world, what they are essentially doing is looking for a Redeemer in the wrong places.
David Parker: The reason why we ourselves often give into the temptation of sinning is because we think that God is not able to meet us where we are in our struggles, but the second half of verse 3 of Psalm 100, we have such comforting words we are His, his people, the sheep of his pasture.
David Parker: There are many images that scripture uses to describe God's relationship to his people.
David Parker: One image is that of a father with his children, another husband with his wife.
David Parker: In Isaiah we've considered the example of the gardener and his vineyard and in this image, god being a shepherd, and his people, his sheep, is a very popular one.
David Parker: In one sense, the shepherd image reminds us of the providential care of God.
David Parker: That's why we have those well-known words from Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd.
David Parker: I have what I need.
David Parker: He lets me lie down in green pastures and he leads me beside quiet water.
David Parker: But in a greater sense, this shepherd image reminds us of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
David Parker: Listen to these words from John, 10, verse 11, 14, and 15, where Jesus says I am the good shepherd.
David Parker: The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
David Parker: I am the good shepherd.
David Parker: I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me.
David Parker: I know the Father.
David Parker: I lay down my life for the sheep, the sheep.
David Parker: Hebrews 13, verses 20 and 21.
David Parker: Now may the God of peace who brought you up from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, with the blood of the everlasting covenant, equip you with all that is good to do, his will working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
David Parker: Amen.
David Parker: Sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
David Parker: Amen.
David Parker: I'd like to suggest that this third ingredient of acknowledging God as Redeemer is arguably the most important ingredient for this recipe for true thankfulness.
David Parker: Now, I'm not saying that these other two ingredients that we just mentioned aren't important, but the reason why I'm saying this third ingredient is the most important because it serves as a base or a framework for the other two ingredients.
David Parker: Think of this recipe as a soup.
David Parker: God is sovereign would be your meat.
David Parker: Acknowledging God is created would be the vegetables and the seasoning.
David Parker: God is redeemer would be the broth or the stock that the first two ingredients live in.
David Parker: When we consider the overarching storyline of the Bible, god's big picture, we have a story of redemption and it's within that story we come to understand, rightly, when Scripture speaks about God as sovereign and God as creator and God as redeemer.
David Parker: True thankfulness is when we realize that we are a part of redemption history and that God is still redeeming people and in due time, he will redeem the world.
David Parker: We've considered that true thankfulness has three ingredients acknowledging God as sovereign, acknowledging God as creator and acknowledging Him as redeemer.
David Parker: Now, in order for us to really enjoy this recipe, this soup you can say the soup of true thankfulness it's important to note that when the psalm speaks about acknowledging God as sovereign, creator and redeemer, he's not just referring to a mere head knowledge about those things.
David Parker: Others translations of this passage say know that the Lord is God.
David Parker: This word for know is a sense of experiencing and being completely assured of this truth.
David Parker: The psalmist is encouraging us not just to make this soup of true thankfulness, but to drink it as well, and by doing so we will come to taste and see that the Lord is good.
David Parker: Let us pray, father.
David Parker: I am thankful to be here with your people, to worship you and to be a servant to them.
David Parker: And, lord, we are grateful that you are good to us.
David Parker: Father, we praise you and thank you that we get to experience your new mercies each day and that, along with all of the redeemed, we get to say hallelujah, praise be to God and praise be to our wonderful Savior, jesus Christ, and I pray this in his name Amen.