When was the last time you were truly thankful? What is the thing for which you are most thankful? Have you ever been so thankful for something that it caused you to spontaneously praise God? In the Scriptures we constantly see thankfulness driving people to spontaneous praise. There are at least three types of thankfulness which should drive believers to praise. The first type of thankfulness is the thankfulness of deliverance. The second is the thankfulness of blessing. The third is the thankfulness of awe.
Considering the thankfulness of deliverance, I would ask you, have you ever been in a very difficult situation in which you felt as though there was no hope? Have you ever wondered whether you would survive your present difficulty or perhaps wondered if you might ever be happy again? Our Savior warned us, “In this world you will have tribulation” and he was right. All throughout redemption history God’s people have faced many trials and tribulations. Troubles in which it seemed, humanly speaking, impossible to escape. It is, however, situations just like these where God’s goodness towards his people often shines brightest.
The people of Israel, after a 400 year stint in Egypt, away from the promised land, found themselves in slavery to the Egyptians. The oppression of Pharaoh was great indeed. The king of the Egyptians had imposed the death penalty on any newborn boys among the Hebrew people just for being born. As it is written, “Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.’” (Exodus 1:22) As a parent of four precious children I can hardly imagine what I would do if the governing authorities of our own land commanded the death of my sons at birth. What could the Israelites do but despair? The correct answer, of course, is that they could hope.
The Biblical idea of hope, one of the three theological virtues of the church, is not the same as the kind of hope that many in our day talk about. For many today the word hope is equivalent to wishful thinking. Someone might say, “I hope I get a raise” or “I hope I don’t get pulled over for driving 90 mph in a 65 mph zone.” But the virtue of Christian hope is something much more meaningful than this. Hope means to greatly anticipate or expect something that is surely coming. The Christian’s hope is based upon the unchanging character of Yahweh, our God, and his promise to bless his people. God had told his people in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Genesis 22:17)
So God’s people, in Egypt, should have had hope but largely they felt despair. Surely you and I can relate to feeling despair when we should have hope. We let our circumstances overwhelm us and swallow us up. We get so busy looking at the darkness all around us we don’t see that it flees from us with every step of faith we take. The darkness is powerless against the light, but still we often only focus on the darkness. Despair or not, Yahweh our God is good and his promises are everlasting and he never sways in his good purposes for his people. As it is written, “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2:25-26)
God raised up a prophet and leader for his people and he delivered his people in the most dramatic fashion. Yahweh, the one true God, conquered the gods of Egypt through 10 plagues. He forced the hand of Pharaoh to let his people go from the land of Egypt and, as they went out, they “plundered the Egyptians.” (Exodus 12:36) But God was not yet done bringing the enemies of his people low. Yahweh caused Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened yet one more time so that the military might of Egypt would pursue the Israelites. How quickly, again, Yahweh’s people turned to despair when they saw the chariots of Pharaoh on their heels. There was, however, no reason to fear. For as they walked in the midst of the Red Sea on dry land and came to the other side God brought the walls of water crashing down upon Pharaoh’s army, utterly defeating the Egyptians.
Finally, the people of Israel realized the reality of their deliverance from the hand of the Egyptians and finally they responded appropriately. How did they respond? They responded with thanksgiving which gave way to spontaneous praise! The people began to sing:
“I will sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Yahweh is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. Yahweh is a man of war; Yahweh is his name.” (Exodus 15:1-4)
The people had been delivered from their great oppression and trouble and they were overwhelmed by thankfulness and it turned into spontaneous praise. It is fitting and right that God’s people should praise him with thankful hearts when he does exactly what we should expect him to do, because of his promises, and he delivers us from our troubles. Indeed our Lord has said, “In this world you will have trouble” but he finished this saying with “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Thankfulness should come from other quarters as well. Just as thankfulness and praise may be produced by God’s mighty hand to save his people from their troubles, so it should also be evoked by his gracious extension of unexpected blessings and answers to prayer. Have you ever greatly desired something and prayed for it? It may not have been, in one sense, essential to your life but, in another, quite essential. How many women have struggled with fertility and prayed longingly for a child? How many men and women have prayed earnestly for a godly spouse? Maybe you have prayed for a good friend to come into your life, the salvation of another person, a new job for yourself or a family member, a new home, or something else that matters dearly to you. God may choose to say no to such prayers as these teaching us, “My grace is sufficient for you.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) But in truth even when our heavenly Father says no, he is really saying yes to something better for us. “For all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes.” (Romans 8:28) Yahweh may answer these longings of our heart in unexpected ways, ways which were not originally on our radar as to how these desires might be fulfilled. He might even reshape our desires as we pray about his will for our life. Regardless, whether God answers our prayers with a “yes”, or a “Yes, but not like that”, the Scriptures tell us “in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” (2 Corinthians 1:19-20)
It is God’s good pleasure to give good things to his children. As it is written, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:7-11)
In Scripture we see God’s blessing poured out upon his people all the time and we see many of them responding, quite appropriately, with thanksgiving and praise. Sometimes it is an answer to prayer, such as when Hannah prays for a child and God blesses her with Samuel. Sometimes it is quite a surprise such as when God tells us Mary she will be the mother of the Messiah. Hannah sang, in response to God’s blessing, “My heart exults in Yahweh; my horn is exalted in the Yahweh. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.” (1 Samuel 2:1) And Mary sang after her “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
David also praised Yahweh when God blessed his people by allowing the Ark of the Covenant to return to Jerusalem after having been gone for many years. The Scriptures say.
And it was told King David, “Yahweh has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And when those who bore the ark of Yahweh had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before Yahweh with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of Yahweh with shouting and with the sound of the horn. (2 Samuel 6:12-15)
David was so overcome with thankfulness that he offered a sacrifice only six steps into their journey! David danced with joy before the ark “with all his might.” Have you ever danced with all your might for joy? Do you know that it is an appropriate response to God’s blessings to do so?
Praise is just the right response when we are made thankful through God’s blessing. How easy it is, though, to receive good things from God and be ungrateful. How many times have we done this? Even things which we have longed for for a good while we too often receive them and barely acknowledge God’s gracious hand in it. We are thankful for only a moment and then return to our dissatisfaction. We deceive ourselves into thinking we got the thing we desired by ourselves or that we got it because we deserved it. But as it is written, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) And also, “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7) Let us praise God for his blessings! As it is written, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’” (Lamentations 3:22-24)
Finally, thankful praises should result from contemplation of God’s nature and grace as these things bring us to awe of him. Have you ever lost yourself thinking about the greatness of God? Have you ever tried to think back to eternity past just to realize it's impossible? Have you ever considered the vastness of God who is omnipresent, fully present in every square inch of the universe, yet not contained by it. Have you thought about how God is not just omnipresent in space but also in time and that just as every place is in his immediate presence so is every time? Have you ever stopped to consider that the immortal, invisible, God only wise, joined himself to a human nature and that he continued to “uphold the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3) while he was lying in a manger in Bethlehem? Have you ever thought about how God is three persons and yet one being, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons but co-equal in existence, power, and glory? Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought about the darkness of your heart, the awful things you have said and done, let alone thought, the secret sins of your heart, the hatred you have felt for others, the jealousy, the pride, the arrogance, and the putting of yourself before others, and then thought about how this God who is perfectly, holy, and just demands that we be perfect, holy, and just even though we are not? Have you ever realized that you have not honored him as God or loved him with your whole heart, mind, and strength, and that you have not loved your neighbor as yourself? Have concluded that you deserve the wrath of God and the eternal fires of hell? Have you ever thought that, in spite of all of these truths of who God is and who you are, that God himself died for you? He died for you. He died for you. Christian, he died for you! And he rose for you! He conquered death, and sin, for you! He united you to his beloved church and made you his bride! He washed you and sanctified by the water of his word! He fed you with spiritual food and nourished you to health! Jesus saved you and he saved me!
Praise the Lord! These are the kinds of truths that drove Paul to doxology, to spontaneous praise, in the midst of his theological writings. When writing to Timothy, his beloved son in the faith, about staying faithful to the Lord, he breaks into praise.
I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:13-16)
Again, when writing to the Romans about God’s salvation of both Jews and Gentiles in Christ, he cannot contain his praise when he considers God’s mercy in awe.
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)
Numerous times Paul and the other authors of the New Testament fail to contain their thanksgiving and praise as they are thinking about God and his marvelous grace. Ought we not to do the same? Perhaps if we are not more thankful it is because we are too thoughtless. Meditate on the word, hide it in your heart that you might not sin against him, soak in the riches of his grace, reflect on the weight of our sins, revel in the sufficiency of his Son to save us!
So then, brothers and sisters, let us praise the Lord! Let us praise him because he has delivered us from all of our troubles and will continue to do so until we see him face to face in his kingdom. Let us praise him as he adds to us his blessings and gives us good gifts. Let us praise him as he answers our prayers in unexpected ways. Let us praise him as he continues to shower his love upon us through his Son and apply it to our hearts by his Spirit. Let us praise Yahweh who is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, omniscient, omnipresent, transcendent, and immanent. The God who is far beyond us and unknowable, has come near to us and made himself known. He has redeemed us by his Son and on our darkest of days that is reason to praise the Lord! For he has overcome the world, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and brought us into “his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) He has adopted us and made us sons and daughters of the kingdom with full inheritance! “For I am his, and he is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ!”