Thanks Giving Sunday!

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to church. It is fantastic that you are here. It’s fantastic that we can spend time in God’s word together, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look at Psalm 95 and see what God has to say about thankfulness. So let’s pray as we get into it.

Father, thank you for your word, and thank you that you have spoken to us. Would you please help us to prepare our hearts and our minds that we might be willing to submit to you and that we might be willing to be transformed by your word. Amen.

I am not a gifted gardener. Gardening is not really my thing. If you were to walk past my house right now, here’s what you’d see: you’d see two apple trees in pots that are alive only by the grace of God. You would see a capsicum plant which has transcended normal biology and doesn’t need sun and water; it just runs out of spite for me. You would see an heirloom tomato plant that needs therapy. You’d see some empty pots, which is like my herb graveyard, and you’d see a lemon tree which actually is doing quite well, and there’s quite a lot of lemons on there, and I haven’t cared for it at all. Maybe that’s the secret; maybe if I don’t touch it, maybe things will go a bit better. I suspect half my problem is that I don’t really know what I’m doing, but the other half is that I’m not particularly patient or consistent with something like this that I’m not really that passionate about.

But I do know some things about gardening. I do know some things, and I did get some things right. For example, I do know that gardening is seasonal. So in Sydney, I know that I should plant tomatoes in the spring, and I’ll plant beans in the autumn, and I’ll plant coriander in the bin; that’s where it belongs. Gardening is seasonal, and actually lots of things in life are seasonal.

My wife, Morgan, and I, we’ve been married for seven years, and our daughter, Ivy, is almost two. Our life now looks quite different to what it looked like when we first got married. In our first year of marriage, we were both youth group leaders on a Friday night youth group, and so every Friday night after youth, we’d go to Emu Plains Mackers, or we go to someone’s house, and we’d hang out until midnight or 1:00 a.m., and then we’d drive home to Paramea. Now, when I finish New Light Youth here on a Friday night, I get home at 10 p.m. Morgan’s already asleep, and I’m pretty soon to join her. We’re in a different season of life.

My parents are retired, and yesterday they took this picture. Here they are on the screen. That’s my mom and dad. That is the most northern point of the Australian continent. They’ve been on this caravan camping holiday for a few weeks now. Thirty years ago, when I was two, they packed up their life in England, and they moved to Australia because my dad got a job here, and they had five kids in tow, and the seven of us moved into a three-bedroom house in the outskirts of Penri. They are in a different season of life right now.

Yet, there are some aspects of life that aren’t seasonal. They’re not dependent on our circumstances. They continue no matter what. What we’re going to see in Psalm 95 is that thankfulness is not seasonal, but it’s perpetual. Thankfulness isn’t dependent on changing circumstance, but it’s connected to an overarching reality. Thankfulness doesn’t just belong alongside the good moments, but even alongside the bad moments. Thankfulness isn’t a tomato or a bean that can only be planted in a certain season, but it can live and grow and thrive all year round. Thankfulness isn’t seasonal; it’s perpetual.

So you got your Bibles there? Open Psalm 95. Let’s get into it. Psalm 95 is an invitation to come and worship. Verse one: come and sing and shout. Verse six: come and bow down and kneel. Verse two: come with thanksgiving. It’s this invitation to come and honor God with your heart and your head and your hands and your voice and your whole life and to be thankful to him. But it’s not simplistic. It’s not like a kids’ birthday party invitation where it’s like, here’s a list of the details. Come and praise God, and then say thank you to him, and then we’ll go get lunch or something like that. It’s far more effective. It’s far more compelling than that. It’s an invitation that’s designed to reach into your soul, not just into your calendar. It’s an invitation which is designed to reach in and inspire a response of thankfulness because what it does is it draws our focus to the past, to the present, and to the future. It encourages us to look behind us, to look around us, and to look ahead of us. It’s an invitation that’s always relevant, and so we’re going to start with the present, the way that encourages us to look around us, and then we’ll look at the past, and then the future.

Our Mighty Shepherd King is Near

Come and Worship God

One helpful tool that you can use when you’re trying to understand a Bible passage is to look for some repeated words or some repeated ideas. If you do that in Psalm 95, you’ll find pretty quickly a clear structure in the first half. Verse one: come and worship God. Verse three: for, because, here’s a reason. Then verse six: come and worship God. Verse seven: for, because, here’s a reason. It’s invitation, reason, invitation, reason, and we’re going to see why the author separates those two reasons out.

The first reason to come and worship God is in verse three: that God is the great king of the universe. He’s the cosmic king. He is the God above all other gods. Notice the lowercase G there. He is supreme, and he is huge. Verse four: he holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains. While I was preparing for this sermon, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. I wanted to try and do some maths to try and illustrate the scale of what we’re talking about here, and so I got the distance from the bottom of the Mariana Trench to the top of Mount Everest is about 20 kilometers, and then it’s like, well, maybe I can have a tennis ball and hold the tennis ball in my hand, and I started putting some numbers in a calculator, and it just doesn’t work. The numbers are too big. It’s a waste of time. Actually, that’s the point. Verse four is classic Hebrew poetry which paints the picture of everything, of infinity, similar to as far as the east is from the west, and as far as the heavens are above the earth, from the depths to the mighty mountains. It’s everything. It’s infinity, and God holds it all, not straining above his head, just in his hands, under his control.

Also, verse five: the sea, that old thing, that vast, chaotic, uncontrollable, immeasurable thing, God made that. Oh, and the land too. The first reason to come and worship God and be thankful is that he is the great, infinite, powerful, cosmic king of the universe.

He is Our Shepherd

The second reason is in verse seven: he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. He is our shepherd. This week at Riverson and Hiles teaching scripture, we were looking at John chapter 10, where Jesus says that I am the good shepherd, and the picture that Jesus paints is so beautiful. It’s of this loving, caring, protective, providing, faithful shepherd who loves his sheep and knows their names, and maybe the most strikingly, he’s going to die for them. The big idea of the scripture lesson is to make the link and to see what it looks like when Jesus, the good shepherd, really dies for his people. He does willingly give up his life for our sake.

We were talking about this in scripture class, and there was a video on the screen about a shepherd calling some sheep, and the sheep all come running to him, and they’re all barring, and it’s all very, very cute. We were talking about it, and one of my scripture students said this: that Jesus dude sounds very nice, and maybe I wouldn’t mind a bit of that peace in my life right now. That was her reflection, and isn’t that good? That’s a good reflection to notice that this is a picture of peace and of refreshment and contentment, and that shepherd image is very consistent throughout the whole Bible. Think of Psalm 23: the Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. Imagine if that was true. Imagine if Psalm 23 was true, and with God, I actually have all that I need. Imagine if we actually believe that.

The second reason to come to God and worship him is that he is our shepherd, and isn’t it just remarkable that these two reasons sit next to each other in this psalm? They’re held together. They’re both true. This is why the author separates them because they seem opposite. They seem to contrast each other: the powerful, universal king versus the loving shepherd. But God is not only one of them. God isn’t the supreme, inaccessible king who is high on his throne and too busy to worry about us, and God isn’t the loving, limited shepherd who can defend us against some wolves, but then when the army comes, maybe he’ll be overwhelmed. That’s not what he’s like. He’s both. He is our powerful creator king and our caring shepherd. He is our mighty shepherd king. He is present tense our mighty shepherd king.

You see what the psalm is doing? It’s drawing our attention to what is happening right now, the reality of right now. Whenever we read it, whatever season of life we’re in, if we look around us, present tense, we have a mighty shepherd king, the supreme king of the universe, and he knows us by name, and he cares for us, and he is near to us. No wonder verse two calls us to come to him with thanksgiving. Psalm 95 draws our focus to the present to look around us, and what it shows us is that our mighty shepherd king is near.

Our Heavy Chains are Broken

Don’t Make the Same Mistake

Next one, Psalm 95 points us to the past. It encourages us to look behind us. As Morgan read out Psalm 95, I wonder if you just kind of noticed that halfway through it’s like the author changes gears, but he just didn’t quite get the clutch the whole way down. It kind of just jolts forward, and suddenly we were in an invitation to worship, and now we’re in this warning, and this warning reminds us of two painful events at Mibbar, a place where God’s people fail. They failed to look behind them to remember what God has done. Let me show you both of them.

The first time that God’s people are in Mebah is in the book of Exodus. God has just rescued his people out of slavery in Egypt. Moses and the plagues and the Red Sea, and in Exodus 15, Moses and God’s people sing this amazing song of deliverance, thanking and praising God for what he’s done. Then in the very next chapter, chapter 16, God’s people are wandering in the desert, and they’re running out of food, and here’s what they say. It’s on the screen, Exodus 16:3: “If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt, they moaned. There we sat around pots filled with meats and ate all the bread we wanted, but now you have brought us into the wilderness to starve us all to death.” Tensions are high, and God gives them mana. God gives them food. Then the next chapter, chapter 17, God’s people are wandering in the desert, and now they’re running out of water, and here’s what happens: “But tormented by thirst, they continue to argue with Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?’” So God gives them water to drink, and this is how he does it: Moses struck the rock as he was told, and water gushed out as the elders looked on. Moses named the place Massa, which means test, and Maribbar, which means arguing, because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord here with us or not?” That’s Marbar and Massa, one place with two names. God’s people forgot. He literally just miraculously rescued them out of slavery from Egypt. They forgot about the plagues and the Passover and the Red Sea. They forgot to look behind them.

Jesus Set You Free

The second time God’s people are in Meabar is in the book of Numbers. In Numbers chapter 13, God’s people reach the promised land, and they send some spies in to go and see what the land is like. Go see what the towns are like, how high the walls are, how strong the enemies are. They go for 40 days, and then they come back, and they say, “This land is amazing. There’s milk and honey, and it’s fertile soil, and it’s going to be so good, except the cities are well fortified, the enemies are strong, and maybe we even saw some giants.” After God’s people received that report, here’s what they say in Numbers 14. It might sound familiar: “Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. If only we had died in Egypt or even here in the wilderness, they complained.” Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt.” This part of the story is when God makes an oath to them. This is the oath that we read in Psalm 95:1: this generation will never enter my rest, will never enter the promised land. They are so against me.

Then we get to Numbers chapter 20, and you’ll never guess what happens. They set up a camp, and there’s no water, and here’s what happens on the screen: “The people blamed Moses and said, ‘If only we had died in the Lord’s present with our brothers, why have you brought the congregation of the Lord’s people into the wilderness to die along with our livestock? Why did you make us leave Egypt and bring us here to this terrible place?’” Again, God gives them water. Moses strikes a rock, water comes out, and here we go, verse 13: “This place was known as the waters of Maribba, which means arguing, because there the people of Israel argued with the Lord, and there he demonstrated his holiness among them.” God’s people just forgot. They forgot to look behind them. They forgot what God had done, how he’d rescued them out of slavery, how when they were hungry, he fed them, and when they were thirsty, he gave them water to drink.

Psalm 95 tells us, urges us, don’t make the same mistake. Don’t replay what happened at Maribbar. Don’t forget what God has done for us. Don’t forget that we were in slavery, not in Egypt under a Pharaoh, but in slavery to sin and death. We were bound, and we were helpless, and we were perishing, and then Jesus set us free. Jesus set you free, no longer bound, able to go and embrace him, no longer helpless, but empowered to serve him, no longer perishing, but given new life in him. Jesus set you free, and if you’re hearing this and nothing is happening in here, then wake up. What’s happening? Jesus set you free. This is the best news, the most profound news that we will ever know, that we need to be constantly reminded of. We rarely forget things all at once. Often the first step towards forgetting is complacency, but we’re not going to be complacent because Jesus set you free. You were dead, and now you’ve been raised by Christ. You were lost, and now you’ve been found by Christ. Jesus has set you free. It’s no wonder verse two says to come to him with thanksgiving.

Psalm 95 draws our focus to the past to look behind us, and what it shows us is that our heavy chains are broken.

Our Promised Rest is Secure

The Category of Rest

Of course, Psalm 95 points us to the future. It encourages us to look ahead of us. I mean, that’s not quite true because if you scan Psalm 95, you’ll notice there isn’t very much future tense language. It doesn’t seem to talk about the future very much, but I feel pretty confident to draw out some future implications because that is exactly what the author does in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews chapter 3 and 4, it’s like he’s doing a sermon, and the passage is Psalm 95. It’s quoted at least four times, and the teaching is very clear: God’s promise of entering his rest, his promised land, is still here. It still stands. His people in Exodus and Numbers, they failed, and they failed to trust him, and so they missed out, but for those who believe, for those who trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin, that promise still stands. They will enter his rest. They will enter the promised land, and so Hebrews says, “Hold firmly to what you believe.” That’s how Psalm 95 looks forward.

I want to show you why the book of Hebrews says this. I want to show you why it makes the link between the promised land in the Old Testament and this eternal rest in the New Testament, and I want to show you this because it will help you appreciate more deeply what Jesus has done for us in a specific way, but also it’ll help us appreciate more widely what Jesus has done for us as we read more and more of the Old Testament. This book is called Mastered by the Word. It’s written by my friend Craig, and it shows us how to read and understand the Bible more clearly. At New Light Youth, whenever someone starts preaching, they join the preaching team there. That’s the book that they get. Trinity just got hers in term one, and then she did a killer sermon on when Mary meets the angel in Luke chapter 1. It was so good.

Here are four key moments in the Old Testament: God’s promises to Abraham, the rise and then the fall of King David, the exile of God’s people to Assyria and Babylon, and then right at the end, the birth and the life of Jesus. Between Abraham and David, God sets up all these categories, big themes that are going to progress through the story. Think like the Passover and the tabernacle/the temple and kings and priests and prophets. These are all big categories that God sets up that are going to weave through the story, and by the time they get to King David, they’re actually all looking pretty good. Solomon builds the best temple ever, and the kings are pretty much as good as they are ever going to be, and then things all fall apart because the kingdom of God splits in two to Judah and Israel. Kings go from bad to worse. The temple and the priests become this corrupt system, and eventually Assyria and Babylon crush God’s people, and they’re taken away into exile. Yet, while everything is falling apart, God’s prophets are saying some pretty wild, pretty exciting things about all these categories and how they’re going to be amplified. They’re saying things like there’s going to be this king who will live forever, and somehow he’ll also be God, and somehow he’ll die, but then he’s somehow alive again. They’re saying things that God’s people won’t just be descendants of Abraham, but actually all people in the world will be blessed through God, and all these people can live in God’s big new city and temple, which will be way bigger and way more awesome. Even though everything’s falling apart, all these promises are still being made.

Later on, God’s people come back from exile, and this is what they think is going to happen. They’ve been hearing about all these promises, like, “Yes, finally all these things are going to be great. It’s going to go up. It’s going to be great,” but that’s not what happens at all. It stays down the bottom. The temple’s rebuilt, and it sucks. It’s small. It’s lame. It’s a shadow of the former temple. They don’t have a king at all. In fact, they’re under the rule of another king from another nation. The land is desolate, and it just looks like this. Then at just the right time, Jesus turns up, and it becomes clear very quickly that he is the one that’s going to fulfill all these categories. He’s going to be this eternal king. He’s going to be the great high priest. He is the new temple. No longer do you go to a building to meet with God; you go to a person; you go to Jesus. In the same way that a sacrifice was needed at the Passover to save God’s people, Jesus is going to become the once-for-all sacrifice himself. It’s all happening, and then finally all those categories that Jesus fulfills, they are refracted out into the book of Acts and beyond and to us today. That’s where we are, and so now we are the temple. God lives in us through his spirit. We are a new priesthood and a new nation, and the list goes on.

This is showing is how these categories move throughout the whole Bible. I want to help you notice what happens with the category of the promised land, the category of rest. Right at the start there, God promises to Abraham that his descendants will have their own land, a promised land. As time goes on, God’s people gain land, and under King David, they have pretty big borders, and things are looking pretty great. After the fall of King David, God’s people start losing land as enemies gain more and more power, especially Assyria and Babylon. By the time the exile happens, it’s all gone. There’s nothing left. Yet, at the same time, God’s prophets are promising that there will still be this promised land and that in it, God’s people are going to find rest and abundance and joy, and the city’s going to be rebuilt, and it’ll be more glorious and full of life and milk and honey and song and all the good things, and their enemies are going to be defeated, and all the swords will be melted down, and the bows will be snapped because we don’t need them anymore.

An Eternal Promised Land

Along comes Jesus, and what he makes clear is that all these amplified promises are not talking about a physical piece of land with borders and walls. He’s talking about heaven. He’s talking about a new city which will be our home forever, and there will be rest and abundance and joy as we people who have been forgiven by Jesus get to live alongside God forever and ever, and that is refracted out as that hope is real for us today. We get to know for sure and look forward to that future promised rest and promised land. We will fully and finally be with God forever.

How much more thankful can we be about this? How much more thankful should we be that although Psalm 95 tells us about the physical promised land that God’s people missed out on, that category has been amplified and refracted out by Jesus, and we are offered so much more? We’re offered an eternal promised land full of people from all nations and no more tears and no more sickness, fully satisfied with God forever. No wonder Psalm 95:2 says to come to him with thanksgiving. Psalm 95 draws our focus to the future to look ahead of us, and what it shows us is that our promised rest is secure.

There they are. When we look around us, our mighty shepherd king is near. If we look backward, our heavy chains are broken. If we look forward, our promised rest is secure. Can you see now how clever this psalm is, how it reaches in and inspires a response of thanksgiving because whatever is happening in your life right now, all three of these things are true, and all three of these things deserve thankfulness, and it’s not because these diminish or downplay the circumstances in your life. It’s because they elevate the eternal reality given us through Jesus. Whatever happens in your life tomorrow, all three of these things will be true, and whatever happens this time next year, all three of these things will be true, and whatever happens overseas as tensions are rising and conflict is escalating, all three of these things are true. When you’re on a hospital bed with hours or minutes left to live, all three of these things are true. All three of these things deserve thankfulness. Psalm 95 turns our thankfulness into a gyroscope. However roughly life tosses us around, whatever pressure we experience, we’ll always be able to find our way upward. Thankfulness isn’t seasonal; it’s perpetual.

Some of you will know Charles Spurgeon, who’s a famous preacher who lived in the 1800s, and he battled against sickness for most of his life. There’s lots of stories about how he had gout in his leg, and so he’d preach some sermons kind of balancing on one foot, or he’d do a lot of sermons sitting down. In May 1989, he was forced to rest, and so in June, the next month, he went to church, and he preached, and that ended up being his last sermon before his death. I want to read the conclusion to his last sermon because wouldn’t it be wonderful if in our last days or if in our darkest days, we were so filled with thankfulness toward Jesus that this is what we would say about him.

Here it is on the screen: “If you wear the uniform of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was like his like the choicest of princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold, he always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his shoulders. If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, yay, lavish and super abundant in love, you will always find it in him. His service is life, peace, and joy, all that you would enter on at once. God help you to enlist under the banner of Jesus Christ.”