Our scripture reading this morning comes from Psalm 107. It is a great psalm of praise and thanksgiving. It's part of a section of psalms. Psalm 104 is a great psalm praising God for creation. Psalm 105 is a great psalm praising God for the gift of His covenant. Psalm 106 is a psalm of grief over the disobedience of the people to God's covenant leading to their exile. And Psalm 107 is a great psalm of thanks for restoration from exile. So we want to read some verses from Psalm 107, the first nine verses, and then from verse 31 to the end. Let us give our attention to the reading of God's holy word. O 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 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 give thanks to 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 then down to verse 31. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders. He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste because of the evil of its inhabitants. He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water, and there he lets the hungry dwell, and they establish a city to live in. They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. By his blessing they multiply greatly, and he does not let their livestock diminish. When they are diminished and brought low, through oppression, evil, and sorrow, He pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes. But he raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. So far, the reading of God's Word. Our first song this morning began, Come, ye thankful people, come. And our history in this nation is an appeal that annually we come to give thanks. And yet, it almost seems that that's become difficult for us even to talk about in contemporary America. I was struck in reading President Lincoln's proclamation how naturally, how unapologetically he spoke about the God of divine providence that oversees all things, that governs all of history, that sends blessing and sends distress. How naturally he talked about the need of the nation to reflect on its sins and to seek for mercy. And how even in the midst of one of the most horrible wars in human history, he called on the nation to reflect on its blessings. And today, in the media, we hear references to thanksgiving, but hardly ever a reference to him to whom thanks should be rendered. It is a little curious that even the grossest secularists are stuck with this reference to a need to give thanks. Because a need to give thanks surely implies there is someone to whom thanks ought to be given. I was looking at Time Magazine a little while ago, and they had a long section on food leading up to Thanksgiving, and it was entitled, The Gods of Food. And I thought, oh, now are we having polytheism promoted among us? Well, it was an article on chefs. They were the gods of food. And I thought that's kind of clever, But how very sad that there was no article on the God of food, on the one to whom we give thanks, on the one who has given to us all of those delightful kinds of food that we're going to enjoy today. The media is full of warnings about the dangers of this food, reminding us that we will probably all eat more than 4,000 calories at this meal. that's okay. Feasting once or twice a year is a good thing. But the whole idea of giving thanks and knowing the one to whom to give thanks has become problematic. And it can become problematic for us. It's not just those people we need to worry about, but we need to examine our hearts. How thankful are we? What does it mean to be thankful? How do we express thankfulness? Thankfulness is not automatic. All of us who have raised children know that children naturally tend to assume that any good gift that comes into their life, they more than deserve. And we have to work as parents to help them remember to be thankful, to say please and to say thank you, and to have in their hearts a gratitude for what comes their way. We're just the same. We're just the same. We have to cultivate thankfulness. We have to take time to pause and remember the one to whom we're thankful, the one from whom blessings come. That's why I think this is such an important service annually. That in the midst of the busyness of this day, in the midst of wonderful things we can do in this day, in the midst of the privilege of getting together for many of us with family, The privilege of marvelous food, that we take time, that we remember that this day is a time set aside not so much for us to have a good time, though that's good, but for us to remember the one who makes good times possible and to say thanks. And so this psalm, I think, helps us reflect on how we should respond in thankfulness to the blessings of God. How do we give thanks? And you'll be surprised to learn that this psalm suggests to me that there are three ways in which we are to give thanks, that we're helped to give thanks. The first, this psalm says, is to remember what God has done for us. You know that old hymn, Count Your Blessings, Name Them One by One. Some people have the custom at the Thanksgiving table of going around and each person being asked to name something for which they're thankful in the past year. We have to remember what God has given to us. We need to take time to remember that. And this psalm does that. It helps to focus our attention. This is a psalm of celebration in Israel's life when they had come back from exile, when they had been restored by the mercies of God. They had been, some of them, scattered so that they just wandered in exile in the desert. They were without a city, they were without food, they were without drink in significant ways. And this psalm celebrates that the Lord had remembered them and brought them out of that suffering, out of that loss, out of that difficulty, and they wanted to remember Him and what He had done. They wanted to think not only about the gift, but about the giver. In Psalm 106, that talked about the sin of the people, forgetfulness was one of the great sins in Israel's history. Psalm 106, verse 7, our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works. They did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but they rebelled by the sea at the Red Sea and down at verse 12. Then they believed his words, they sang his praise, but they soon forgot his works. They did not wait for his counsel. We don't want to be like that. We don't want at one moment to believe in our God and give him thanks and then in the next minute to forget him. We want to remember. We want to remember that he gathered his people from exile. It was not just Israel who was exiled from God. All of us were exiled from God. All of us left to ourselves are cut off from God by sin. But God remembered his people. He showed mercy to his people. He called his people to himself. And in Psalm 107, Israel is celebrating they were brought back to the land. They were brought back to their capital city. They were brought back to a city where they were safe and secure and could worship their God. God provided them with that city, with that place of safety. And so God has gathered us by his Holy Spirit through his word. God has gathered us to be citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. God has assured us of a place of safety, of joy, of worship. And we have to remember that. We have to celebrate that. We have to rejoice in that. God is our Savior. He gathers us from exile, and God is our supplier. This psalm celebrates how God satisfies the hunger and the thirst of his people. We are a very privileged people. Almost always when we turn on the tap, water flows out. Do you realize how few people in the history of mankind have that privilege? That's a privilege of only a few generations that everybody had indoor water flowing and didn't have to carry it from a long distance. Didn't have to worry whether the well would go dry. Didn't have to wonder whether there would be water available. We are a privileged people because God supplies water to us. And the same is true with food. It's a little hard for us to celebrate harvest, most of us. Most of us aren't involved in harvesting. Most of us don't hardly see a crop to be harvested. Most of us think that we have a right to go year-round to the grocery store and see an amazing display of fruits and vegetables and all sorts of other things to eat. I don't really believe in eating vegetables, but some people do. And it's amazing to see the plenty that we are privileged to have. That doesn't just happen because of the farmers. and doesn't just happen because of the truckers and doesn't just happen because of the supermarket people. It does happen through them, but it happens because God supplies for his people and he supplies so abundantly. Look at verse 9 of Psalm 107. For he satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things. That is what our God does. He doesn't provide us minimally with what we need for body and soul. But he supplies abundantly. He supplies wonderfully so that we are satisfied. And you notice how the psalm connects soul and body. Verse 5, they were hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted within them. And then verse 9, he satisfies the longing soul. and the hungry soul he fills with good things. The physical things that God gives us are intended by him to not only satisfy the needs of our bodies, but to draw our minds to the way in which he provides just as abundantly for our souls. And as we sit at those tables today that are groaning with food, We should remember that our souls are just as, and even more so, abundantly provided for in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we think of the delights of the table, we must think of the delights of our souls in the mercies of our Savior. We have a God who is a great Savior and a great supplier. He is also, we need always to remember, the great sovereign. He is sovereign over all the things in our lives. When we gather at our Thanksgiving table and we reflect on the blessings of the Lord in the last year, we probably will not name those struggles, those difficulties, those problems, those afflictions. It's fine not to do that. We don't have to delight in the struggles of life. But we do have to remember that our God is sovereign over those things. That God is not absent from us when those things happen. Isn't it striking, verse 33? We've been celebrating in this psalm all the ways in which God has blessed and God has gathered and God has provided. And then we have this moment when we're reminded that sovereignty doesn't always mean that every minute is a joy. Verse 33, he turns the rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste because of the evil of its inhabitants. Struggles, difficulties, problems come into this world and come into our lives as a warning and a reminder of God, of the imperative necessity of repentance in our lives. It doesn't mean that every struggle reflects a one-to-one judgment from God, but every struggle in life says to all of us as human beings, are you remembering your God? Are you remembering our fall into sin? Are you remembering the judgment that we ought justly to receive? And God is sovereign in these things. God uses these things in our lives to draw our minds to Him. To help us to remember that He is in charge and He is a holy God. He is sovereign, but He is also the Savior. And his sovereignty is always focused and pointing, above all, to that mercy that is in him. And that points us then to the second element of learning to be a thankful people, what's summarized for us there in verse 43 at the end of Psalm 107. Having remembered all that God has done, all of his saving ways, all of his supplying ways, all of his sovereign ways, then we're called upon not only to remember, but also to reflect. Remembering by itself isn't enough. Verse 43, whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. Wisdom is more than just remembering. As important as remembering is. Wisdom is seeing the meaning of things. We can remember all the blessings. We can have a great list of blessings. Similarly, we can make a list of the trials and tribulations and afflictions of life. But we have to not only remember those things, but then step back and reflect on them and ask, what do they mean? What do they point to? Are these good things just random events, happenstances of life? Are afflictions just chance events? That's what a lot of people believe in our time. That's why it's much more frequent to hear people say to you, good luck, than to say to you, God bless. I was reading a novel. It's a shameful thing, but I do it from time to time. I was reading a novel, and in it, there's a character who goes up to the Mount Wilson Observatory in the mountains east of Los Angeles, and there he's looking through one of the great telescopes there at the stars, and the author writes this. He felt himself getting smaller, a speck, reduced to nothing by a vast indifference. Sadly, that's what lots of people feel and think and believe today when they look at the heavens and they see the stars and they've been informed by the millions and billions of light years and stars that are out there. For many people, the reaction to that is just to feel a vast indifference. We are nothing, and nobody's out there who cares. And that kind of modern attitude stands absolutely against what the Scriptures teach. Absolutely against every moment of God's Word. Absolutely against what we're called upon to reflect on. that we might be wise. We are not surrounded in this universe by a vast indifference. We are surrounded by the Lord our God. And what is at the very heart of the universe and purpose of our God as he surrounds us? The last words, which are almost the first words of Psalm 107, Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. The Lord does not surround us with indifference. He surrounds us with his steadfast love. And what this psalm is saying to us, what we're called to reflect on, what will make us wise is to realize that God drives all of history out of his steadfast love for his people. When he sent Israel into exile, it was in part a manifestation of his steadfast love. When he gathered them back, it was a manifestation of his steadfast love. Above all else, when he sent Jesus Christ, his own beloved son, to bear their sins, it was a manifestation of his steadfast love. What is the truth then that surrounds us? What is the wisdom that is ours when we think about God as our Savior and our supplier and our sovereign? The truth that surrounds us must be we're surrounded by steadfast love in Jesus Christ. Our life is driven by steadfast love in Jesus Christ. God's mercy, God's love, God's goodness is what characterizes us at all times. And if we remember that, and if we reflect on that, if we consider it, if we ponder it, if we roll it around in our minds, how can we not be thankful? How can we not rejoice? That's point three. We need to remember, we need to reflect, and we need to rejoice. We need to express our thankfulness for what God has done that we've remembered and that we've reflected on. How do we do that? Well, one of the ways is what we've already been doing and will continue to do, we sing. We praise God. What a wonderful privilege is ours as Christians to be able to sing. We may not always agree perfectly on what to sing, but the fact that we should sing and lift our voices to God, The fact that he's inspired songs to give us that we can sing should fill us with joy. It's an expression of joy and thanksgiving and praise to our God. Christians love to sing. It's a way in which we rejoice. I think we also rejoice in testifying for what the Lord has done for us. You notice that in verse 2 of this psalm? Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. I think it's a sad thing. that so many Christian churches don't have a thanksgiving service. Churches are forever complaining about the creeping secularization of our society, and then they don't have services. I think it'd be great tomorrow, the next day, somebody says to you, did you have a good thanksgiving? And you can say, I really did. You know, we began in church giving thanks to God. And you know, almost always immediately you can tell, if you say something like that, if the people to whom you're talking are the least bit interested in what you have to say or not. If they immediately change the subject, you know, they're not interested. You shouldn't force anything down their throat. But maybe if you say, I was in church giving thanks to God, the sermon wasn't very good, but the experience generally was good. It's an opportunity to talk to them about what it means to be thankful to God, to acknowledge Him as the source of every gift. It's a way of rejoicing. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And then, of course, we express our rejoicing, maybe preeminently, in prayer. That's what our catechism says, doesn't it? The Heidelberg Catechism, question 116, declares that prayer is the chief part of the thankfulness which God requires of us. We're going to do that in a minute. We're going to offer a thanksgiving prayer because that's what thankfulness entails. It is all part of the remembering, the reflecting, and the rejoicing so that we'll more and more be a thankful people, a people that acknowledge all that we have, all that we are, all that we hope to be, comes from our great God. May that be true of every one of our hearts and every one of our experiences today. Amen.