Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Psalm 95 as we look at the thankful heart.  We have just finished celebrating Thanksgiving 2003 this past Thursday and we as Americans have much to be thankful for. We live in a free country, we can worship the true and living God without fear of being put to death, we can tell others about Jesus without the fear of being put to death or put in prison, we are blessed with much wealth, much prosperity in this country, and I think the list can go on-and-on.  We, as a nation, we as a people are very blessed!

            But make not mistake about it, even if we didn’t have all these freedoms we enjoy so much, even if we didn’t enjoy all those blessings that God has bestowed upon us in a material sense, we as Christians have much more to be thankful about.  And yet, as you talk to some, all they can do is complain about what they don’t have, what they want instead of all that God has given them.  We tend to focus on the material things which are only temporary, instead of the spiritual blessings which are eternal!  Don’t get me wrong, God has blessed us with many material blessings, all you have to do is go to a third world country and you will be embarrassed by our wealth, what we waste, what we toss away as garbage and they use to live with.  Over one billion dollars was spent buying things at Walmart stores across American the Friday after Thanksgiving as people began their Christmas shopping, over one billion dollars in just one day in one retail store!

            Before we get into our text this morning listen to the response of H. A. Ironside to a person who refused to give thanks to God for his food. We are told:

            In his book Folk Psalms Of Faith, Ray Stedman tells of an experience H. A. Ironside had in a crowded restaurant.  Just as Ironside was about to begin his meal, a man approached and asked if he could join him.  Ironside invited him to have a seat.  Then, as was his custom, Ironside bowed his head in prayer. When he opened his eyes, the other man asked, “Do you have a headache?”  Ironside replied, “No, I don’t.”  The other man asked, “Well, is there something wrong with your food?”  Ironside replied, “No, I was simply thanking God as I always do before I eat.”  The man said, “Oh, you’re one of those, are you?  Well, I want you to know I never give thanks.  I earn my money by the sweat of my brow and I don’t have to give thanks to anybody when I eat.  I just start right in!”  Ironside said, “Yes, you’re just like my dog.  That’s what he does too!”

                                                            - Source Unknown

            Think about that for a minute, because I think Ironside’s statement is correct.  Man apart from God is like an animal, his flesh nature drives him, he is wild!  On the other hand, Christians are guided by the Spirit of God and not the flesh, at least they should be and one of the things that should flow from their lives is a heart of thankfulness, thanksgiving unto God.  Now for those of you who are unthankful, always complaining about this problem or that problem, this thing or that thing, do you realize that you are outside the will of God?  Listen carefully to what Paul said in I Thessalonians 5:18-19, “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  Do not quench the Spirit.”  It is the will of God for us to be thankful and one of the ways we can quench the Holy Spirit’s work in our life is to have an unthankful heart!

            Now as we move into Psalm 95 you are going to see that the Psalmist is calling for us to worship God, to have a thankful heart because of all that God has given us.  On the other hand, an unthankful heart will find a person who is uneasy, is not restful because only through belief can we enter His rest. With that said, let’s begin reading in verse 1 of Psalm 95 and see what the Lord has for us as we think back on all we have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving 2003.

            In verses 1-7a the Psalmist shows us the majesty, the awesomeness, the power of God and yet He is never too busy to care for His people, to shepherd His people – He is our God!  It is out of all He is and all He has bestowed upon us that we are to come before Him with thanksgiving!

            As I listen to some Christians today, they are so unthankful to their parents who raised them, provided for them, cleaned their diapers, sat with them while they were sick, helped them with their homework, drove them here and there and everywhere!  And I can tell you as a parent how much that hurts.  Now, let’s look at our heavenly Father, God, who has provided for us, cared for us, is with us, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and yet all we can do is complain about what we don’t have!  How do you think that makes God feel?  I will tell you this, being unthankful will be like throwing cold water on the fires of the Holy Spirit in your heart and if you desire, you can continue down that path and be a wet blanket to those you are around.  Or you can repent before God and thank Him for being there and not forsaking you!

            As the Psalmist continues on in verses 7b-9 he deals with a heart of unbelief.  God brought the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt by His mighty hand, over 2 million Jews set free! He brought them through the Red Sea on dry ground and as the Egyptian army was coming upon them He closed up the Red Sea upon them and they were all washed away, they were all drowned while the children of Israel were saved!  God delivered His people!

            God did all this for them and then they began to get thirsty and instead of asking God to satisfy their thirst, remembering all that God had done for them already, they began to complain because they did not think God could supply their basic needs.  The result of their unbelief in these basic issues was they could not believe that God could give them victory over the giants in the land and they died in their unbelief!

            The Psalmist continues on in verses 10-11 saying that because they refused to trust God, they refused to walk by faith; they were going to wander in the wilderness for forty years until that generation of people, from 20 years old and up, died out!  You see, they did not enter His rest, which is a place of faith, of trust, of walking in the Spirit.

            How many Christians live their lives in the wilderness, not walking by faith, not entering the promise land, which is a life of the Spirit. Yes, they are saved, they have been delivered from the bondage in Egypt, which is a type of the world, but they never enter that walk in the Spirit, they never enter the promise land!

            As you look at this Psalm you see a celebration for those who are walking by faith, being lead by the Spirit. Their hearts overflow with joy and praise unto God with thanksgiving in their hearts. You see, their hearts did not go astray. Does that mean life was easy for them, a tip-toe through the tulips you might say?  Of course not, but they looked to God who could give them rest with a thankful heart!

            But, if you refuse to walk by faith, you will not enter His rest and your life will not be filled with worship because worship is an outflow of faith.  You are not going to have a thankful heart because once again thankfulness is an overflow of faith.  And the Psalmist, portraying these two kinds of people, gives us a choice and basically tells us, “Today, if you will hear His voice . . . walk by faith or you will walk by sight!”

            But we as Christians can lose sight of what God has done for us; we can get use to the blessings and take them for granted.  Listen carefully to what Warren Wiersbe had to say regarding this issue.  He tells us:

            I have felt for a long time that one of the particular temptations of the maturing Christian is the danger of getting accustomed to his blessings.  Like the world traveler who has been everywhere and seen everything, the maturing Christian is in danger of taking his blessings for granted and getting so accustomed to them that they fail to excite him as they once did.

            Emerson said that if the stars came out only once a year, everybody would stay up all night to behold them.  We have seen the stars so often that we don’t bother to look at them anymore. We have grown accustomed to our blessings.

            The Israelites in the wilderness got accustomed to their blessings, and God had to chasten the people (see Num. 11). God had fed the nation with heavenly manna each morning, and yet the people were getting tired of it.  “But now our whole being is dried up,” they said, “There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!” (v. 6).

            Nothing but manna!  They were experiencing a miracle of God’s provision every morning; yet they were no longer excited about it.  Nothing but manna!

            [They complained about the manna, and think about it, manna and eggs, peanut butter and manna, manna bread, manicotti and-so-on!  Instead of manna they wanted meat and the Lord told them, “You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the LORD who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, ‘Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?’”   Numbers 11:19-20.  God gave them what they wanted, not what they needed and when you sow to the flesh you will reap to the flesh and that is exactly what Psalm 106 tells us of this incident.  We read, “They soon forgot His works; They did not wait for His counsel, But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, And tested God in the desert.  And He gave them their request, But sent leanness into their soul.”  Psalm 106:13-15.]  Warren Wiersbe goes on to say:

            One of the evidences that we have grown accustomed to our blessings is this spirit of criticism and complaining.  Instead of thanking God for what we have, we complain about it and tell him we wish we had something else. You can be sure that if God did give us what we asked for, we would eventually complain about that.  The person who has gotten accustomed to his blessing can never be satisfied.

            Another evidence of this malady is the idea that others have a better situation than we do.  The Israelites remembered their diet in Egypt and longed to return to the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.  They were saying, “The people in Egypt are so much better off than we are!”  Obviously, they had forgotten the slavery they had endured in Egypt and the terrible bondage from which God had delivered them. Slavery is a high price to pay for a change in diet.

                                                            - Warren Wiersbe, God Isn’t In a Hurry, pp. 77-78

            If you have lost sight of the miracle of God’s provisions in your life, the blessings He has bestowed upon you and you have deteriorated into a Charlie Critic or a Candy Complainer, maybe reviewing these blessings will stir the embers in your heart and rekindle that fire once again.  And for each of us, no matter where we are at this morning, I think it is good to remember what God has given to us so we can approach Him with hearts of thanksgiving.  Thus, with the remainder of our time this morning we are going to be looking at some of these blessings that God has for us, for as David McCarthy said, “The man who has forgotten to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.”

1.  GOD’S LOVE – ROMANS 8:35-39

            “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

            What a great blessing that God has given to us, His love, which no one can separate us from, no created thing, not even the Devil himself, not even death itself!  One of the things I am so thankful for is my wife Julie and her love for me.  I know she loves me and is committed to our relationship, we will be married this May 25 years!  And the thing is, in 25 years she knows I am a bone head at times, I do stupid things and you know what, she still loves me.  That tells me she is either crazy or crazy in love with me and I think it is the last response, in fact I know it is!  Now if her love for me is that strong, imagine how much stronger God’s love is towards us – no one can separate us from it!

2.  ETERNAL LIFE – JOHN 10:28 

            “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

            Jesus is saying to us that all those who are in Christ Jesus have entered into eternal life with Him. Yes, these physical bodies may go back to the dust of the earth, and they will unless the Lord returns for His bride, the church first, but when these bodies do go to the dust of the earth, our spirit and soul goes to be with the Lord, who is preparing for us new bodies for our spirit and soul to dwell in, bodies that will not fade away!  What a great promise, not just the existence of life, but abundant life in Jesus!

3.  FORGIVENESS – I JOHN 1:9

            “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

            Here is another blessing that God gives to us, His forgiveness.  How many of you, since you have been saved, have never sinned since that time?  If you raise your hand you are a liar and thus you have sinned so put your hand down. The thing is, positionally speaking we are without sin because the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sins. But on a practical, day-by-day level, we do blow it, we do sin, we fall short and God is there with forgiveness in His hands.  The reason we do confess those sins is because it makes us aware of them, it helps us not to get accustomed to those sins.  But His forgiveness is there and folks, that is something to be thankful for!

4.  GOD’S PRESENCE – HEBREWS 13:5

            “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”

            How many of you have ever felt that because of your actions, your behavior, that God has forsaken you, He has left you, He has signed the papers to cancel your adoption into the family of God? We may not put it in those terms or words but at times I think many of us feel that way!

            Think about this. When your child is bad, maybe it has gotten so bad they are in trouble with the law, does your love for them stop?  Do you tell them they are no longer part of the family and you are signing papers to have them removed?  You may feel that way at times, but the reality is, we don’t because we love them and our love for them is unconditional, it is freely given not based on what they have done, but an act of our will towards them.  Thus, how much more with God who has told us in His Word that He would never leave us or forsake us!  Believe it and thank God for that blessing of His presence in your life!  And if you are feeling God is not there, you are making Him a liar!  He is there and maybe you need to believe because the Bible tells us that when we draw near to God, He will draw near to us!

5.  ACCESS TO THE LORD THROUGH PRAYER – HEBREWS 4:14-16

            “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

            This is powerful; we can come before Father God in prayer, something they could not do in the Old Testament.  If you remember there was an 18 inch thick veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place where the presence of God dwelt in the temple.  In the most holy place was the Ark of the Covenant where the 10 commandments, which were written on tablets of stone, were kept and above the ark was the mercy seat where the presence of God dwelt.  Notice that God did not sit upon the Law but upon the mercy seat, which is a blessing in itself, for we are not judged by the Law but we are given mercy, something we don’t deserve by God!

            Now the most holy place, where God dwelt, could only be entered once a year, on the day of Atonement or Yon Kippur after the High Priest went through a ceremonial cleansing and even then, they would place bells on his robe and a rope on his foot so that if the bells stopped ringing, then they knew God struck him dead and they would pull him out, for they could not come before a holy and righteous God.

            But when Jesus was crucified on the cross of Calvary, paying in full the penalty for our sins, the sins of the world, we are told that this 18 inch veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place was torn in two, not from bottom to top signifying that man opened the way to God, but from top to bottom showing that God has opened the door for man to come before God, not in his own righteousness but the righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to him.  Now we can boldly come before God, we can speak to Him, we don’t have to go to anyone else, Jesus has opened the way, as Peter said in      I Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.” And thus, as Paul said, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16.  Can you imagine the blessing that is, God is waiting for us to come to Him, He is never to busy to listen!

6.  SALVATION – II CORINTHIANS 9:15

            “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” Or as The Living Bible puts this verse, “Thank God for his Son-his Gift too wonderful for words.”

            If God blessed us with only this, our salvation, that indescribable gift, what more do we really need?  Absolutely nothing – we have eternal life with Him, all our sins are forgiven and truly there is nothing more we need but He does bless us above all we can ask or think, both spiritually and physically!

7.  VICTORY – I CORINTHIANS 15:57

            “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

            When the Academy Awards are on, the winners come up and they thank all the people who have made it possible for them to achieve that award. But, for us as Christians, our thanks goes to Jesus who gives us victory over every area of the flesh life if we would only give it to Him instead of holding on to it!  There is no one else to thank for this victory, only Him!

            We can go on-and-on looking at the blessings that God has given to us, but I think you can see that in just these seven we have looked at, that there is much we should be thankful for, that we need to be thankful for!  And you can get a concordance and look at other blessings that God has given to us, because as you do, I think you will have a thankful heart, a heart of praise and thanksgiving unto God for all He has given to you, to me! As I close this morning let me leave you with this story to think about, it goes like this:

            There is a legend about two angels who were sent to earth to gather up the prayers of men.  One was to fill his basket with the petitions of mankind.  The other was to gather their prayers of thanksgiving.  Sometime later they went back to the Father’s house.  One had a basket heaped high, and running over, with the innumerable petitions of men. The other returned with a sad and heavy heart, for his basket was almost empty.  The thanks of men were heard but rarely on earth, even though the angel had searched diligently. Do not let us forget the thanksgiving side of your prayers.  - The Expositor

            Let me end with this from Colossians 3:15, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.”  Or as the Amplified Bible puts it, and we are going to be looking at verses 15-17, “And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ's] one body you were also called [to live]. And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always]. Let the word [spoken by] Christ (the Messiah) have its home [in your hearts and minds] and dwell in you in [all its] richness, as you teach and admonish and train one another in all insight and intelligence and wisdom [in spiritual things, and as you sing] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with [His] grace in your hearts.  And whatever you do [no matter what it is] in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in [dependence upon] His Person, giving praise to God the Father through Him.”

            May you leave here with a thankful heart that continues to grow each and every day, a thankful heart towards God, may we not forget to thank Him!  Let us shout unto the Lord our praises.  Amen!