When I was around 6 or 7 years old, I lived in a neighborhood that was dominated by bicycle riding. Pretty much the only people who drove on our road lived there, so we had free reign all over to have races, set up ramps, or just ride—or at least, my three older sisters had free reign because they had bikes. I can still remember times when they would be out riding with the other kids and I didn’t have a bike to ride with them. Sometimes I would try to take one of my sister’s bikes, but they were decidedly feminine and too large for me to handle with ease. So my sights were immediately set on getting a bike of my own. I incessantly requested my parents for one and then, on my birthday, I had my very own bike. Oh, and it was cool. Black, with the name “Night Rider” painted on the side. I was one happy kid. My parents gave me this bike with their blessing, but gave me a few rules to follow with it as well. One of those rules being that I put it up in the garage when I was done riding it. As you can probably guess, that is not something I did with frequency. On one particular occasion I got in trouble for not doing so and was ordered to go and put my bike up. I hotly followed orders and in my rush to put my bike away, I did not go through the side door which by passed the cars, but instead walked in between them, accidently scrapping a very large chunk of paint off my father’s car.
Now, many of you are probably thinking, “wow, Timothy, you were a terrible child,” and I would agree. I was very hard on my parents. What I mean to show with this story is that true gratitude is not something that we are born with. When I think back on the day my parents gave me a bike, my thankfulness for the gift was shallow. Thankfulness is something that must be cultivated and learned. We just don’t come about it naturally. That is one reason we have Psalms that lead us in thanksgiving. We need God’s word to change and conform our hearts to what they should be. The Psalm we are hearing this morning is a psalm of thanksgiving. Particularly it is a psalm giving thanks to the Lord for answering prayer. I think this psalm answers to questions for us that are interrelated, “How do we give thanks to God for answered prayer and why is it important that we do so?” In verses 1-3, the psalmist shows us how we are to give thanks, in 4-6 he tells us why we should give thanks, and in 7-8 the psalmist offers reason for confidence in the Lord.
First, lets focus on what this Psalm tells us about how we are to give thanks to God.
Let’s begin by looking at verse one. The psalmist begins by telling us exactly what is due when the Lord answers prayer: Unbridled, complete, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head praise. The psalmist is giving thanks with his whole heart, with all of his being. So, we see from this that we are to give thanks to God holistically. That’s our first point. We are to give thanks to God holistically. By that I mean we are to give thanks to God with our whole being.
The praise that the psalmist offers is hearty, full, and rich. And I confess with shame that I can’t relate to it all that much. Giving thanks with my whole being, my whole heart. And I know what that is indicative of. It reveals a life that is prayer deficient. For to give thanks for an answer to prayer in such a hearty way requires, I think, hearty prayers. Its only when we are invested in prayer that we can be properly invested in praise. So, this might seem incredibly elementary, but the first step in being able to praise God for answered prayer is to pray. And I don’t mean to try and get more hours of prayer in (if you do, that’s great!), but rather to invest quality in our prayers. The sort of joy that the psalmist is experiencing here is not likely due to the Lord answering an unspecific and emotionless prayer. The joy he is experiencing comes from an answer to a prayer that had some earnestness and weight to it. This shows his intentionality. Prayer must be intentional on several levels. First, we must be intentional in setting aside time to pray. While prayer can occur spontaneously and we should strive to live in a spirit of prayer, we must also set aside time to pray. It is inevitable that if we do not set aside a specific time for prayer than it will be pushed out of our schedules by the chaos of our day. There is always something else to do or somewhere else to go and if we are not careful moving from one thing to the next can push out our time of prayer. Second, it helps if our prayers are intentional. I find that when I go into prayer with an idea of what I need to be petitioning the Lord about then I have much greater success with consistency and concentration. I am so grateful for the prayer sheets that we have here at Cornerstone. I’m so grateful for our Sunday night prayer meetings. They provide an opportunity for me to pray for others in concrete ways. These are opportunities for us to invest much into our prayer life. It is only then that we can have the joyful praise to offer the Lord that the psalmist has for answered prayer.
Secondly, we see that we are to give thanks to God by crediting him only and completely. Not only is the psalmist’s thanks coming from the deepest reaches of his heart because he has prayed with all of his heart, we see from the second half of verse one that it is exclusive to the one true God. Before the gods the psalmist sings the one true God’s praise. It’s important to note here that David is not recognizing these false deities to be real. He’s a confirmed monotheist. Rather, his praise is acting as an expression of devotion to Yahweh, the one true God, and as a witness to the impotence of the false gods of the nations that surround Israel. He is declaring to God, himself, those around him and even us today that it is God and God alone who deserves any credit for the answer to prayer that he received. There is no false deity that can do what the real God does, and the psalmist mocks them by singing praise to the one true God before them. The nations around Israel pointed to their false gods as having power and ability. They gave credit to their false deities for rains, harvest, life, death, and even war. They would take credit due to the true God and pass it off on one of their idols. They attempted to rob God of his due by attributing his work to an idol made with hands.
Today, we do not have such a form of idolatry around us. No carved images that people pray to—not officially anyway. Yet, the same type of robbery occurs. Prayer is not something that can be objectively proven. We cannot take it into a laboratory, dissect it, or run tests on it. By the nature of what it is this cannot be done. This is because no matter how awesome the answer to prayer is, someone can still always say, “it would have happened anyway.” They rob God of credit for the answer to prayer. Take for example the little girl who we prayed for this past week. She was found at the bottom of a pool and doctors feared the worst. Less than a week later she is home and shows no signs of damage. Scores of people prayed for this girl, yet an outsider can still say, “It would have happened anyway.”
The power of prayer is not proven through objective means but through the practice of prayer in faith. When we pray and God hears us and answers us, there is no greater proof or assurance of the effectiveness of prayer. That’s way the Psalmist is able to praise God so whole heartedly, there is no doubt in his mind that what has come to pass was an answer to his prayer by Almighty God. And notice that the psalmist does not run before these false gods and attempt to show them false by this answer to prayer. Prayer is firstly a tool of praise and aid, not an apologetic weapon. Our praise to God for answered prayer is a great tool of evangelism.
Thirdly, we see that we are to give thanks foremost for who God is, not only what he has done (what he does flows out of who he is). This is what we see in the second half of verse two. David gives thanks to God’s name specifically for his steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalmist here is recognizing the strong connection between God’s name and his perfections. In Exodus 34:6-7 we have a record of a very dramatic event. Moses asks to see God’s glory and God tells him that He will make all of His goodness pass before Moses and will also declare before Moses His name. And when God passes by him, He says, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” This is who God is. The psalmist knows this and gives thanks to God because he is one who loves his people unendingly and always follows through with his promises. David gives thanks to God here because of who God is. For what God does flows out of who he is, specifically here David praises God for abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. David loves God for who he is, praises him for who he is, and trusts him based on who he has revealed himself to be. David knows he can always turn to God for aid because he is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. Just look at some other passages he wrote in the Psalms.
Psalm 25:6-10, “Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD! Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
Or Psalm 57:2-3, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and faithfulness!”
David knows who God is, so when he celebrates he doesn’t just rejoice in the answer, but in the God who answers.
Steadfast love is a firmly fixed love. It will not change. It will not waver. We can always rely on it. His faithfulness to us is his commitment to keep us with him. Never to abandon us or leave us. If you want to understand allegiance, simply look to our God. This is the particular love and faithfulness that God has for all believers. And the appearance and actions of this love and faithfulness depend on the situation in which the believer rests. We see this in verse 3. It is there that we finally see the specific prayer that was the catalyst of the psalmists praise. “On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.” This verse does not tell us exactly what was going on with the psalmist, what sort of dilemma he was in. What it does tell us is that the way he was delivered out of it was not necessarily by being removed from it. The burden itself may not have been removed, but strength was given so he could bear it. Often times when we are in hard situations or circumstances, we may be tempted to think that the most loving and faithful thing the Lord can do for us is get us out of that situation. That isn’t always the case. It may not be best for us for the trial to come to an end. He may take you out of whatever adversity you are facing, or he may give you the strength to endure. We must recognize both as answers to prayer, and both as loving and faithful answers at that. You may cry out to the Lord in persecution and his answer may be to increase your boldness, not deliver you from the situation. It is absolutely vital that we recognize this as a loving and faithful answer to prayer. And the only way we can do that is if we remain faithful and loving toward God. What I mean by that is this, when we are in a hardship or trial of any kind we face the temptation of believing that God is not in fact steadfast in his love and faithfulness. The lies of the enemy and of the world say that he has abandoned us. That we are on our own, that his love has dried up. Trials test the steadfastness of our trust, our faith in God’s love and faithfulness toward us.
Several years ago, my sister Molly was preparing to get braces. Unfortunately, Molly was born as a true O’Day, and thus had really gnarly teeth. Before she could even get braces, a special device had to be installed in her mouth that would move her teeth in such a way as to make it possible for her to have braces. Every night we would have use a little tool that looked like an Allen wrench to cause the device to expand and spread out her teeth. Molly was 12 at the time, but because she has Down’s syndrome it was particularly difficult to explain to her why this had to happen. She wanted to get braces, she was excited about it even. She could understand that in order to get braces she had to have this device first. But, whenever we had to turn the key to expand that device, she would get scared and it became very difficult to reason with her. The pain and the fear of the situation clouded out the fact that this was for her good. The very same thing can happen to us when we face trials.
Pain can be a powerful agent of forgetfulness. It can cause us to forget that the Lord is loving and faithful to us. However, pain and suffering can also be a powerful agent of faith as well. As the Lord tells us through James in the epistle that bears his name, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). Counting trials as joy doesn’t mean we pretend there is no pain or hardship, rather it means we look past the difficulty to the spiritual benefit. We do not act as if nothing is troubling us, but we see it as an opportunity for our faith in the Lord to grow.
When we do this we reflect the character of God Himself. He is being loving and faithful to us, that is the reality whether we believe it or not. So, in hardship we have the opportunity to cry out to God in love and faith. So, while he is being loving and faithful toward us, we have the opportunity to be loving and faithful toward him by crying out for help and trusting him to supply what we need.
This is how we rightly imitate God. At the end of verse 3 we are told that God has exalted above all things his name and his word. We too must do that by trusting in his character and his promises. He is a loving and faithful God and we must rely on that as the psalmist does. When we pray, we should not expect the Lord to answer us because of our own effort or works. Instead, we lift up our empty hands of faith and love toward God, recognizing him as the one who holds a relentless love for us and who will be faithful to his promises to his people. Our faith rests in his word to us, it rests on who he has disclosed himself to be and how he has shown himself to be in our lives. May we, as the psalmist was, be compelled to cry out to the Lord in times of trouble because we know that God cares for us and wants us to cast all of our anxieties on him. He will indeed deliver us, either by taking us out of the situation or giving us the strength of soul to endure.
Moving on to verses 4 through 6, we see a shift from the Psalmist giving his personal praise to the nations praising God. This answers the question of why we should give thanks to God when he answers us: Broadly, we should give thanks because it brings him glory. Specifically here, though, we see that we should give thanks because it reveals God’s glory to the world. We should give thanks because it reveals God’s glory to the world. In other words, it is the Lord’s steadfast love and faithfulness to his people that will reveal his glory to the nations.
Immediately in verses 4-6 we see similarities with verses 1-3. In verse 1, David gives thanks and sings praise to the Lord. In verses 4 and 5, we see that the kings of the earth shall give thanks and sing of the ways of the Lord. The kings of the earth will follow David’s example. By kings of the earth, what is implied is not just that the kings will turn to the Lord, but the kings represent all of the people within their kingdom. Not only will the kings of the earth turn to the Lord and praise his glory, but all the world will do this as well. So, the nations, led by their leaders, will join in the procession of praise. The reason for this is given in the second half of verse 4 and in verse 5, “For they have heard the words of your mouth and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.” What I think is meant by this is that the world hears that God is faithful and loving, but that is made evident by the way he relates to his people. So, the world hears the testimony and word of the LORD, but they see it in the way he interacts with his people. The world hears of his steadfast love and faithfulness through his words, but they see his steadfast love and faithfulness in the way he acts toward us, specifically in meeting our needs. So, when we turn to the LORD and rely on his steadfast love and faithfulness to us, we are giving testimony to the world of the LORD’S glory.The Psalmist provides us an example of what the nations see in verse 6. Here we read, “For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.” By lowly he means those who are humble and meek. By haughty he is speaking of those who are proud and arrogant. In the standards of the world, we tend to attribute importance to those who act important and treat the humble as insignificant. This is not how God has promised to act, though, and it is not how the world sees him acting either. Instead, God promises to regard the lowly, the meek, and the humble. As he also declares in Isaiah 57:15, “for thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’” This is his Word. This is his promise. This is God’s way of doing things. The nations hear of his way, they see him doing it, and they glorify him for it. This prophecy of the nations joining in the procession of praise is happening today. We are living in it and we are part of it as the recipients of God’s blessings and love.
And the Lord’s faithfulness to his Word is nowhere more evident than in His Word becoming flesh. The greatest testimony to the Lord’s love and faithfulness is found in Jesus Christ. For it is through Jesus that our greatest need is met. The reason God’s spirit dwells with the lowly is not just because the lowly are sad and God feels bad for them, but because they are admitting what is true: They are broken and in need of help. Our sin and rebellion against God has broken us as people and separated us from him. We rightfully deserve the sentence of death for our sins, but because of God’s steadfast love for us he sent his Son to bear our sins on the cross, so that whoever believes in him might be saved. This is the ultimate display of God’s glory. If the world is to see God’s glory through the way he meets the needs of his people, then there can be no greater testimony than this. If you want to display the truth and glory of the LORD than you first admit what is true, that you need a savior. Repent of your sin and cling to Jesus and become a living, breathing, speaking testimony to the glory of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.
Some day, it will be too late to join this chorus praising the Lord’s ways and glory. Join the song today by faith, trusting in Christ’s work on the cross. If you are a believer this morning, then I urge you all the more, confess the ways of the Lord with your life. Give thanks to God for your salvation continually because through this we reveal God’s glory to the world and act as a light to his truth. This is exactly how the Psalmist directs us to act in verses 7 through 8.
It is in these last two verses that we see because the Lord is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness, we can rest assured in him. Just as the psalmist began this psalm with personal praise, he ends it with personal reflection. He is speaking on how he views and lives his life in light of who God has shown himself to be. In verse 7 we see that because of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, he can trust that God will preserve him. The psalmist writes, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.” The psalmist expects trouble in the future, but knows that he can rely on the Lord to preserve him. He does not rest assured in his own ability and power, but in the Lord’s.
As we saw earlier, God’s steadfast love and faithfulness does not mean we will avoid all pain and suffering in this world. In fact, we are promised several times throughout the New Testament that if we follow Christ then we will suffer for it. Hardship will come, but as we saw in verse three, God delights to answer our prayers and meet our needs.
In verse 8 the psalmist once again expresses his confidence that “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.” But also pleas, “Do not forsake the work of your hands.” At first, this may seem like a strange way for the psalm to conclude. The psalmist was expressing such confidence but then ends with a plea not to be forsaken. But his plea not to be forsaken is his strongest expression of confidence in the LORD. What the psalmist is saying in verse 8 is that God is not like men who may begin a work and then leave it unfinished. Man may take on a task and not have the financial capability to see it through or the strength of will to follow it to the end. But Almighty God lacks nothing. What he begins, he will complete. This is what the Psalmist is counting on. He is crying out in need once more, “The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me. It has to be the LORD, I’m too weak to do it on my own. My only hope rests in the fact that the LORD’S steadfast love endures forever. Do not forsake me, for if you do I am done.”
Our dependence on God is just as great. This is not a scary truth, though, if you are in Christ. For if you are in Christ you can count with full certainty on the grace of God, being sure as Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6, “that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” We rest assured in this promise and it is well to do so, for God is faithful.