The Secret of Satisfaction: Psalms of Thanksgiving

This video is about My Movie 1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're in the book of Psalms, and it's been really refreshing and life-giving to me. I hope it has been to you as well. Um, I started off, you know, saying that the seedbed to the Protestant Reformation was what book? The book of Psalms, right? Martin Luther wrestling with God through the Psalms. And I think it can also be our reformation, our renewal. We're all in search of some sort of revival in our own life a lot of times, right? And these psalms can be that. So we're looking out. God will revive us again. The psalms can give us that renewal, that revival, that intimacy with God, where the word becomes alive, where we hear him, know him, love him. The psalms are a gift to us. And so we've been in the book of Psalms. We'll be here for seven weeks. And the encouragement is that we're reading three Psalms a day. Three Psalms a day. Initially, when I did it, it just seemed like a good round number. Three Psalms a day, seven sermons, because there's seven genres, right? The more I have done it, I have just been really encouraged and blessed just in spending time reading through the Psalms each day. And we'll go through again the seven genres on Sunday mornings. I also kind of just mentioned briefly just how to read your Bible. You know, preachers love telling you what to do, but they rarely tell you how to do it, right? They say, hey, you need to read your Bible. But what do we do when we actually sit down to commune with God? Um, and I find that there's three things that we can learn in reading through the Psalms. That if you learn these three things, I believe you will never find your time in the Word of God stale, boring, or a chore. And that, but these are often kind of overlooked, right? The first one being posture your heart. So when we sit down and read the Bible, so often, right, we want to move on to the next thing. We want to just figure out what's happening. We want to understand the names or the story, right? We don't just sit with God before we even begin to read. We're not taught that. But just posturing your heart, I think, is really important. Recognizing this is a holy moment, right? You're about to commune with the living God, sitting in stillness. God, speak to me. I'm here. I'm I want to commune with the creator of the universe, posturing your heart, secondly, meditating on the words. For those of us with a little bit of ADHD or ADD, this is hard sometimes, right? We want to keep moving, right? We want to jump around to go back and to rest, to sit still, to sit quietly, to reflect patiently in a passage or in a phrase or even in a single word. Meditating on the words, God uses that as we mutter, as we murmur, right? The words that word of God. He will use it to open our heart to it. And secondly, savoring God. I know that a lot of times we can think of reading the Bible as like just a chore. I described it kind of like Mary versus Martha, right? We can even read the Bible like Martha. Well, I got to do these things. I have to get through three chapters. I only have 10 minutes, right? And this is a long chapter. I need to move through this quickly, or we can be like Mary. We just sit with God and savor God for as long as it takes. I told you one of my youth pastors, one of his favorite favorite phrases was have unhurried time with God. Unhurried time with God. It never really resonated, but now I get it. When we're hurried, when we're Martha, it's hard to savor, right? Savoring is slowly and deeply and intentively enjoying God, allowing its goodness to fit speak to you, to fill your mind, to fill your heart. I'll say it again. I've repeated this for three weeks, but I believe if you learn these three simple things, really these three simple things, your time with God in the Bible will always be life-giving. It will always be encouraging, but it takes practice. It takes actually learning it, learning to sit with God. How do I actually posture my heart to commune with the living God? How do I meditate? How do I savor enjoy God? So the encouragement is just in three Psalms a day. We're learning that practice to savor God, to enjoy God, to be with God. Call in the series A Treasury of Devotion, seven weeks through the Psalms. And we're going through the seven genres or the main seven genres of Psalms, starting with wisdom psalms. If you remember from week one, Psalms one is a wisdom psalm. Wisdom psalms are instructional, they're Torah, they're teaching us how to live, often written as way there's two paths of life with two outcomes. There's only two, there's not a middle ground. There's there's two paths that we can choose, and there's only two outcomes for all of humanity. Why are they wisdom? Because it's not always self-evident when we reflect on it, right? We think there's infinite pasts or hundreds of pasts or thousands of pasts. Wisdom, they're teaching us. No, there's actually two paths with two outcomes. There are wisdom psalms. There's also psalms of praise. We just we saw there's psalms calling us to worship God. We talked about we we praise Jesus, we praise God for both his position as creator, as holy, as as as the wisdom of all the universe, as all-knowing, as brilliant, right? He holds the universe in the palm of his hands. We praise him in his position, but we also praise him in his person. He is good, he is loving, he is kind, he is generous, he is gentle, he is beauty. We also praise him in his works, right? It's not just who he is, but he works out what he who he is and what he does. So we have psalms of praise. Then last week we talked about psalms of lament. Psalms of lament, the most common psalms, probably half of the psalms are psalms of lament, just cries to God for help during times of danger, pain, or sorrow. Today we'll go through psalms of thanksgiving. And I found it interesting. I've always thought of psalms of thanksgiving as just general gratitude. But in the Psalms, the Psalms of Thanksgiving are actually psalms of deliverance, they're psalms of salvation, they're declaring the salvation of God, and in a lot of ways they they go along with Psalms of Lament. So Psalms of Lament are expressing our hope in God's deliverance. Psalms of thanksgiving are expressing the done salvation of God. So we'll go through that. There are eight individual psalms of thanksgiving in the Psalms. There's six community psalms of thanksgiving. With that, I will pray and then we will get started. But Lord Jesus, um Lord, we do just thank you for the gift of the book of Psalms, Lord, that you can teach us, Lord, as so many people through the ages have said, the Psalms are our tutor in prayer, Lord, that they are our great guide to look to teach us how to pray, how to commune with you, how to know you, how to enjoy you, how to walk with you through every season and expression of life. So, Lord Jesus, I just pray you would speak to us today, Lord. You would be present. Thank you, God. Amen. Well, in 1965, there was a small British British band, they were trying to make it big, right? They released a song, and one song became the anthem of the 1960s, supposedly. A lot of people called it the expression of the American spirit or the spirit of the times. It had this iconic guitar riff in it, and this this these lyrics that captivated, and particularly the American youth. Anybody want to guess who that band was or what that song was? Rolling Stones, satisfaction. I can't get no satisfaction, right? It resonated with the message of consumerism at the time, of success, of this sexual freedom that could not satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. In the 60s, supposedly people were constantly bombarded by advertising. I don't know what that's like. There was all these expectations, there were promises that of freedom, right? And the youth were saying these are not fully satisfying. The decade of liberation was also known as a decade of discontent. I can't get no satisfaction, right? As much as we pursue it, as much as we seek it, as much as we're liberated to finally find it. The youth were saying, now I don't have it. Can't get no satisfaction. I don't think it was just the 60s, though. Toqueful in 1835, he was a French philosopher. He was sent to America the Americas originally to study the American prison system. He had other ideas. He started studying the American democracy, right? And in it, he he discovered what he called was this American restlessness. Everybody was restless. There is this individualism that he saw, that he celebrated actually, where everyone was constantly pursuing their maximizing pleasure, their happiness. He wrote, one will find that people continually change paths here for fear of missing the shortest cut leading to that happiness. Sound familiar? He who has set his heart exclusively on the pursuit of worldly welfare, is always in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, to enjoy it. 1835, American culture was at that time even known as these people in this great pursuit of happiness, always in a hurry. I don't think it was just our early Americas, though, or the 1960s. I think that true contentment is a common challenge for most of us today. It is a rarity, if we're honest. What is true deep contentment? JC Rile said two things are said to be very rare in the world. One is a young man humble, the other an old man content. I fear this saying is only true, only too true. Contentment in one moment we might find, but discontent in the next, we're always changing our sentiment, flowing on the waves of circumstance, always moving, seeking, searching for this moment of greater satisfaction, contentment. But it doesn't have to be that way. We read last week that Paul wrote that I have learned, he learned in whatever situation to be content. The word is describing a becoming a disciple. He learned through apprenticeship. It was a learned spiritual discipline. It wasn't a personality trait that, hey, I'm just content all the time. No, he learned it to be content. We also describe that content here is not just accepting circumstances, right? Like we're in the military, we put up with whatever is given to us. No, no, content is actually satisfaction. Be satisfied. The satisfaction the rolling stones can never find. It is the full heart, fulfilled life, something this rewarding, delightful, pleasing, refreshing, sweet. Paul learned, he grew in his apprenticeship through life circumstances to have this constant satisfaction through every situation. He goes on, I know how to be brought low. I know how to even about. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, facing abundance and need. This word secret here, scholars are not really sure why he used it, because really it's it's the in the Greek, it's this invitation to an initiation to kind of a secret society, a secret religion, a secret knowledge. And Paul's playing off of this cultural phenomenon in the Roman world where people wanted to be invited into these secret clubs where they could learn the secret knowledge, find something that is spiritual power or higher status. Paul here is saying he has learned this secret, this mystery of contentment. And then he goes on. I can do all things who through him who strengthens me, or through him, through me. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of like Paul. Give us a little bit more of the window into the secret, right? What is this secret of contentment that you learn? The secret of satisfaction in every circumstance and situation. Show us what it is. He doesn't really explain further, but I'll just potentially give some ideas that I've found in my life, at least. I feel like there's three ways of discontentment. And I found there's two ways of contentment. I'll start with the discontentment. Um, Paul also says in Timothy, he talks about competition. And if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness. So there is a teaching given to us by Paul and recorded in scripture that aligns or results in godliness. And then there's also a teaching that does not align with godliness. What does that ungodliness look like? It is puffed up with conceit and understanding, conceit and understands nothing. Lewis described pride as this sense of always competing, and that competition leads us to always a place of discontent. Pride leading us to competition, that competition always leading us to discontent. He writes in Mere Christianity, pride gets no pleasure out of having something. Just in having something, there is no pride. Only out of having it more than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but no, they are not. They are proud of being richer or cleverer or better looking than the other guys, right? If everyone else became equally rich or clever or good looking, there would be nothing to be proud of. It is the comparison that makes you proud. The pleasure of being above the rest, the competition. Once the element of competition is gone, though, pride is gone. Competition is driven by pride, often leads to discontent. And we all do this at times, right? We complete financially or socially. We complete even in supposed knowledge, even in our online presence. How many likes we get, how many followers we have. We compete in our appearance, in our lifestyle, even in the size of our church or ministry, right? And that competition will always lead us to a place of discontent. Paul continues this ungodly man has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspension suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind, deprived of the truth, imagining that even godliness, even godliness is a means of gain. This sense of competition and comparison. This man who said that envy is the art of counting another fellow's blessings instead of your own. Right? We're comparing ourselves. Envy is rooted in this comparison where we can compare our homes, our possessions, our paychecks, our kids, our parents, our spouse, our church, our abilities, our vacations, our accomplishments. Why are we living in such a state of discontent? Right? We're often stuck in places of competition and in comparison, comparing out of envy. Paul continues, skipping down to verse 9. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful destructions that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves from with many pangs. So we so our discontentment driven by our competition, by our comparison, and often in our coveting, and the pursuit of greener pastures, doesn't always look like money, right? If I could just get married, if I could just have children, if I could change these children, if I could just retire or get promoted, or if I just lost 20 pounds, right? Just or gain 20 pounds, or if I just could buy a house or buy a bigger house, or if I could just make seven figures instead of six figures, if I could just move somewhere else, right? We're continually coveting something else. Discontentment. Comparison, coveting. This man by the name of Henry Now was a Catholic monk. Um, he believed that this discontentment, driven by competition, comparison, coveting, was really driven by a broken identity. Broken identity where we define ourselves. He says, I am what I have. I am what I do, I am what others say about me. When we live from that place, we are naturally driven to competition. Why? Because I am what I have, I am what I do, I am what others say about me. So I compare, I covet, continually competing, leading us to greater discontentment. He wrote a book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, and he argues that the entire story is an allegory of the human search for identity. The younger son, his identity is based on his possessions, his pursuits. The elder son, his identity is based on his performance, his comparison. Neither of them are recognizing their true identity, so they're living in this state of discontentment, competition, comparison, coveting. They're not realizing they're already children of a loving father. When we lose sight of his love for us, his goodness, our security as his beloved child, we will lead a life of competition, comparison, coveting, leading us to discontentment. But godliness with contentment is great gain. In other words, godliness comes with contentment. They go together, they're not separate. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content, we will be satisfied, our heart will be full. Discontentment, competing, comparison, coveting. So, what is the way of contentment? I just propose two things that we see in the Psalms. The first we talked about last week is lamenting toward God. Lamenting toward God. All of us will experience pain in life, right? They say pain is either behind us, it's right here with us, or it's coming down the road, right? Pain is a part of life, and how do we deal with that pain? It will definitely shape how our walk with God. Pain either drives us further away from God or deeper into intimacy with God, either more toward the truth or further into lies and complacency. So we lament moving toward God. And we talked about how we do that last week, that we acknowledge the pain, we cling to the truth, we renew our dependence on God and we praise. And through half of these Psalms, most of them being lament, right? We see this pattern of acknowledging pain, but clinging to the truth, renewing deep dependence on God, leading to praise. Leading to praise. We also talked about last week that there's three other ways that. We often deal with our pain, right? The first one being emotional deadening, especially men, a lot of times. If there's pain, we emotionally deaden. We don't want to think about it. We don't want to feel it. We don't want to feel talk about it. Or we emotionally deconstruct. We start questioning everything. We question God. We question the reasons for things. We question our own selves. We become incredibly vulnerable to lies about God, ourselves, and others, right? Emotionally deconstructing. Or sometimes just emotionally dumping. I just need someone to listen to me. Right? Psalms through through at least half of the Psalms are giving us a different model of how we deal with our pain. Instead of emotionally deconstructing or emotionally deadening or emotionally dumping, no, we lament toward God. I'm bringing my pain, acknowledging my pain, clinging to the truth, renewing dependence, praising you, God, because you are worthy of praise. Coupled with lamenting toward God is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. I found it fascinating that thanksgiving is really just a public testimony of specific acts of salvation. And often in the Psalms, they're following a similar pattern as well, where there's a lament, there's an expression of salvation, and there's thanksgiving for that salvation. A lot of scholars will say they function as a counterpart to the lament psalms, or even a sequel to the lament psalms, where laments are describing a current problem, a plead for help, where we are clinging to God and desperation for God. Thanksgiving Psalms fulfill the salvation of God. Psalms of salvation, there's psalms of redemption, there's psalms of protection, the way of contentment, and reflecting just in my own personal life, of how do we maintain contentment through all seasons of life, through through, through the lows and the highs, right? Through the through the pain and the celebration, right? I think these are two things we see in the Psalms that give us a roadmap and how we maintain our satisfaction in God, where we're lamenting toward God, but we're also expressing thanksgiving and the salvation of God. Most of these all the psalms of thanksgiving, they're not general psalms of gratitude, they're big psalms of salvation, of redemption. We believe in the rescue mission of God. I think focusing on his salvation, redemption is important for us. So I just wanted to read as an example parts of Psalms 118, and then we'll go through it. But oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Let Israel say, His steadfast love endures forever. Let the house of Aaron say, His steadfast love endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say, His steadfast love endures forever. Out of my distress I called on the Lord. Lamenting in distress, I'm calling to the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me freed. The Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is on my side as my helper. I shall look on triumph on those who hate me. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord. The Lord is my strength and my song, he has become my salvation. Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous. I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. So open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O Lord. O Lord, we pray, give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Psalms of Thanksgiving are big psalms of salvation, believing in his rescue and his redemption. In their context, they might have been living in real situations of war or whatnot. As we read and pray into these psalms, I really believe they're just windows for us to celebrate our own salvation in Christ, our own redemption, our own rescue. It's just us praying through these Psalms and reflecting of Lord, how do we maintain contentment? I really believe there's something too. Never losing sight of the cross. We never move beyond the cross, where that is our salvation. It is finished, it is worked, it is final. If we ever find ourselves discontent, at least for me personally, I think we've lost sight of the cross. The cross is where hearts find rest. The cross is where we know our identity as his child, who he loved. The cross transforms our coveting, comparison, and competition into contentment. The cross turns I deserve more into I received received more than I deserve. The cross reminds us that God withheld nothing that we need. I think when we lose sight of the cross, we begin to crave what we don't have. But when we behold the cross, we remember what we've already been given. So my encouragement to us today, this secret of satisfaction. I think the psalms give us two windows into how we maintain that satisfaction through all of life. One, we learn the practice of lamenting toward God. I'm gonna express my pain towards you, but I'm gonna continue to cling to truth and praise you. And also we're gonna live in Psalms of Thanksgiving. What are those Psalms of Saint Thanksgiving? They're big Psalms of salvation, of redemption, believing, knowing his rescue, ultimately in the cross. So if you lost your joy, my encouragement is to return to the cross. I've heard people say that, you know, there's churches of the cross, and there's churches that are the resurrection, right? We want to be a church of the resurrection where we're happy. I say, no, I think there's actually greater joy and satisfaction, just returning to the cross because we know it is finished, his the salvation is done. We no longer have to compete or covet or compare. No, he his love has been demonstrated. We can find satisfaction. If you've lost your gratitude, return to the cross. Right? It it if if we are a lot of people do gratitude journals and they're great. We lose sight of just the the most thing that we will we we can't let go of, and that is our salvation, right? We can thank God for a car and it could be gone tomorrow. And we're stuck in this place of coveting or comparison or or doubting, right? But we can always praise God for his salvation, we can always be grateful for what he has done on the cross. So if I if you find yourself discontent, if I find myself discontent, a place of comparison, why you know, and in competition, we need to we need to prove ourselves more. We're in a place of coveting, we need to we need to gain more, right? We come back to the cross where our salvation is already worked, which is why we do communion every week. We never want to lose sight of what he has done, and it is good for us, it is our salvation, right? And we can celebrate it, we can praise it, we always have room to be extremely grateful. And so, with that, I'll pray that we'll move into communion. But Lord Jesus, we do just thank you, God, for the cross. We thank you that we can be satisfied, Lord, in every situation, circumstance, Lord, that that though it is still a mystery today in the church, clearly, Lord, that we we we live in states of of discontent in what Paul discovered, what he learned, Lord, not just as his own personality, but what he learned in walking with you to be fully satisfied in every situation and circumstance, Lord, that that's available to us, and Lord, we can just live satisfied lives, Lord, where um we our pain leads us into greater praise towards you and greater intimacy we see with you, Lord. And Lord, our our our psalms of praise, our psalms of salvation, our psalms of of thanksgiving, Lord, just continually can befill our tents, Lord, as it says, the righteous tents are full of psalms of salvation. So, Lord, I just pray that'd be true of us, Lord, that we would be encouraged again, refreshed again, renewed again, revived again, and just the goodness of your salvation. That Lord, we can have an identity of beloved children that are saved, rescued, protected, God. And in that, Lord, we've just find satisfaction through every season of life.