for the reading of God's 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 thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man, for He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons. For they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High. So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor. They fell down with none to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart. Let me thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man, for he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts into the bars of iron. Some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction. They loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of hell. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and tell of his deeds in songs of joy. Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven. They went down into the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight. They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. You may be seated. Well, every home needs one. Every gathering of people for a celebration needs one. And every time we gather for worship, we need one. A family, a gathering, a celebration of worship needs someone to pay attention and have an eye for beauty. In my house, that's not me. But what I've watched and learned over the years is how valuable it is to have someone who pays attention. And I've been in charge of various kinds of events and gatherings over the years and never have I thought to include a centerpiece. But when I walk into the room and I see those tables, because someone with an eye for beauty thought more than I did, Or when we gather around a Thanksgiving table and there's a centerpiece there, I'm glad. I'm glad because of what it lends, the focus that it gives, the beauty that it eludes, and what happens around that gathering. One of the things that we find here in this text this morning is the fact that there is a centerpiece to our lives. The question that we ask as we go through this psalm today is, what is it? What is the centerpiece of your life? And the psalmist spares no effort to make clear as we read through this, and maybe you saw it in the structure of the reading that was our hope, that there is something happening and there is something that God puts forward as the centerpiece of our lives in this world, and that is a heart of gratitude. The question then for me, maybe it's not just me, the question is where does that kind of gratitude come from? And what do I do to see that that gratitude takes place? And the psalmist shows us. He shows us and he shows us the soil from which gratitude springs. We invite you to walk with me as we walk together through this. We'll look at a little bit of the structure of this psalm. It's just too much a part of the text to not address in some way. In fact, it shapes the way we might remember and might respond to what we remember today. First, right out of the beginning of this psalm in verses 1 through 3, what we find is a redeeming love. The psalmist makes it plain that throughout the psalm, love, the love referred to is the committed, unchanging, loving determination of the Lord who will never give up those that he has chosen for himself. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, he says. And he's calling our attention and fixing our hearts and pointing us to this lavish and gracious love of God the Father for us. That redeeming love then becomes that soil. And as the story unfolds, and we're going to look at several stories. We see the shape that that redeeming love takes and the tenderness and the timeliness and the precision and the hope that's embedded in God's redeeming love for you. And as you settle in here this morning, as we step into this, the fact is that our lives are scattered, that our lives are fractured, that our lives are sometimes disjointed. And another psalm talks about the fact that what God does for us is he unites our hearts, he brings our hearts together around this wonderful, beautiful story of redemption. that is yours. It's ours today. The structure in verses 4 through 32, we're going to look just quickly at those and then draw some ideas from them. It's four pictures, four threatening situations, you might say, or four troubles is what they're called in verse 2. But there's a clear pattern out of those that we see. You saw that from the four readers. There's a dilemma There's a cry, there's a deliverance, and then there's a summons. And we're going to look at those as we go. And you can find these, maybe you noted it in your Bible or as you were listening, but you noticed that each section of the psalm begins with the word sum. Did you notice that? Some this, some that. Some actually is an interpretive word and it suggests like to my ears and maybe yours that he's referring to four different groups of people. That's certainly possible. In fact, there are…you will find…you might find yourself lodged in one of these stories and when you come to that some, you say, that was me. But the Hebrew here suggests that it might be the same group of people referred to from four different angles. And that's why, as we go through this, some of you may find yourself in more than one group. So for our purposes today, I'm going to use the phrase, do you remember when? Because as we walk through this, if you're like me, you will find yourself in more than one of these categories, more than these groups, as the story of your life is told. So as we go through here, kind of like Waldo, can you find yourself? Where is Waldo? Can you find yourself in this psalm? The background, by the way, and this may help you, help us as we work our way through it, the background of this is most likely, like it is for many of the Psalms, the exodus and the deliverance of a people out of Israel, out of bondage. And so, and just like that is our story, that's our background as well. That Exodus story is my story and yours, the deliverance of just like God delivered Israel, He delivers His bride and He delivers you. So with that background, let's look at these. The first is, the first big category is just the harsh dilemma of life. And we're going to bounce from one to the next. Remember, do you remember the wilderness? Do you remember when you were lost in the wilderness? I mean, it's one thing to be lost on a backcountry road, which is easy to do. It's another thing to be lost in the woods and not have a clue which way is home. But there's another kind of lostness. that all of us are familiar with if you've never been lost in the backcountry, if you've never been lost in the woods. And that is, in the words of Walker Percy, we are lost in the cosmos. We are lost in this wide world in which we live. We are groping and straining, and that's why some of us have such a longing for a place to belong, because we were made for that. Percy said, you live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing. And when I read the news, I think that's probably right. When we watch what is going on in our culture, but even when we're honest with what's going on in our own soul. We have to admit and we have to acknowledge that there are places and times where we are lost. We don't know which is left and right or east or west or up or down. Paul Tripp said, if you don't keep the eyes of your heart focused on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be. in the heart of every living person is the longing for paradise. And the story that we read here is they wandered in desert ways, finding no way to a city to dwell in. That was their plight and it's mine and it's ours. It's why homeless is so painful. It's why hospitality is so restorative. And like Daniel and the exiles in Babylon, they are without home and we are without home. That's the plight. You remember the prison? You may never have been locked up behind bars or chained to a pillar. But the author here, the psalmist, writes about the prisoner in affliction and in irons and hard labor. And if we've never been behind bars or chained to a pillar, we have been trapped. We have been bound by attitudes and behaviors. There are things for which we don't feel like we have the freedom to change because we are bound and we are prisoners to our own selfish choices in this world and the brokenness and the fallenness of this world. At first, we all choose to sin. But a day comes, if we persist in that life, when we cannot help sinning, that's our plight. Every time I sin, I weaken my resistance and I become captive and it weakens my willpower. And you recognize that. Hemmed in a narrow world with slavery and darkness and shame. You remember the disease? He talks about those in verse 17 of those who suffered affliction. And the disease and the affliction that seems to have in mind are those things that are a result of our poor choices. Not simply the disease that surprised us, but those things that we've done and contributed to that seems to be what he's talking about here. But like Nebuchadnezzar, as Nate put it so well, we have been gollumed. And we have become less than we were designed to be. While our reason and our majesty and splendor like Nebuchadnezzar's was removed, we find ourselves eating grass with oxen and hair like eagle's feathers and nails like bird's claws. We are damaged in a sinful world. that has to do with the fall of the alienation that marks our lives, whether that's physical or emotional or psychological. There's a brokenness in this world that is ours. And you see, sin is a robber that takes from us. It takes away from us things like judgment and the taste for good things. And the result is, like Nebuchadnezzar, we are not in our right mind. You remember the storm? Well, some of you are in the storm. Some of us, it seems, go from storm to storm, where the waves of life and the world around us come crashing in on us and we don't know where they come from or why they're there or how long they're going to last. But we are beaten in a hostile world and we lose our balance in our center of gravity. Does this sound familiar? Well, regardless of our situation, whether it's the wilderness, the prison, a disease or a storm, regardless of our situation or dilemma, we do have something in common. That is, those four different experiences have the same remedy. Every one of those. So whatever chapter of the story you're in, Or maybe you're between chapters. Maybe you're writing along pretty well right now. But whatever the brokenness of my life is, whatever the brokenness is, there's one remedy. And it begins with the desperate cry of the soul. The harsh dilemmas of life are dealt with with the desperate cry of the soul. Did you notice this phrase repeated four times? Verses 6, 13, 19, and 28. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. It's a desperate prayer. It can be translated cried out. They stretched forward in their trouble. You know, one thing that you always see in the Old Testament is when the dilemma, when the crisis, when the trouble shows up, they always know where to go. When you read through the Psalms, they always know where to go. They know where to go even when the circumstances aren't changing. They know where to go. And that's what we see here. They cried out to the Lord in their trouble. You know, a lot of us don't cry. And maybe fewer of us cry out as a rule until we have no other option. And that's what we saw here, right? It was in their trouble. It was when the trouble showed up that they cried out to the Lord. And that's one of the ways and one of the reasons that God allows those things to occur. And we fall back on that, not as a cushion, but as a promise and a reality. That in the midst of those troubles, we cry out to Him, and He finally has my attention. You see, He's after my heart. He's after my soul. And He will allow certain things that make us scratch our heads for that purpose. Because He is after me and whatever it takes to have me. That's the desperate cry of the soul. And what we see in response is the gracious the lavish, the gracious deliverance of God. Four times we hear this phrase, and He delivered them from their distress. He delivered them from their distress, and then He amplifies it. Each time He amplifies it and says what He means by that. In verse 7, He led them by a straight way until they reached a city to dwell in. We are lost in a wide world, but there is a love that brings us home. Jesus said, as we heard yesterday, I go to prepare a place for you. In Hebrews, we read that you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God. And in the Gospel of John, our gaze is fixed on a new Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God is with man. We are lost in a wide world, but there is a love that brings us home. He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul He fills with good things. He also, verse 14, He brought them out of darkness into the shadow of death and burst their bonds. Those are those that, if those were the ones that were wandering, these are the ones that were imprisoned. They were hemmed in in a narrow world, but there is a love that makes us free. He shatters the doors of bronze and cuts into the bars of iron. And he says to a stone rolled in front of a tomb, Lazarus, come out. And as Paul writes in Colossians 1, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. He delivers us with a love that brings us home. with a love that makes us free, and also with a love that makes us whole. He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction. Just as Jesus comes on the scene and He walks into the lives like yours and mine and He heals, He restores, He makes whole. Everything from a fever to leprosy to demon possession so that unlike Nebuchadnezzar who lost his mind, you in Christ receive yours. So like the demoniac filled with all kinds of multiple personalities, he is cleansed and made whole. And that's you. That is you in Christ. But it's not only a love that brings us home and a love that makes us free and a love that makes us whole. There is a love that brings us peace in the midst of the storm. Verse 29, He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. And Jesus, in a boat, looks at the waves and commands them to be still. Who is this? Who even the winds and the waves obey Him? Who is this who heals multiple personalities and restore someone to their wholeness and their fullness of making them whole. Who is this that frees us from those things that chain us and enslave us? Who breaks the power of canceled sin? Who is this? Who is this whose love brings us home? Well, it is Jesus. It is the one that you were made for, the one who calls you to himself, the one whose redeeming love marked his life and shapes yours. It's Jesus. And in response to all of this, we find this appropriate, or you might even say logical, summons to thanks. Four times we hear this phrase, let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man. And then we come to this final note or exhortation, whoever is wise, let him attend to these things. Let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord. What do you consider? What do you what does your mind turn around most often? My own story is it's it's so changing Most of the time it has something to do with my circumstances Or if it's not the immediate circumstances it has to do with an unknown future But what do you consider? What do you ponder? And as somebody put it, where does your mind go when it's not focused on something already? It's a great test. It really is. It's an ongoing test. It's an ongoing question that we ask ourselves and should. Where does our mind go? And what we see here is this drumbeat and recurring call and summons that our hearts, our minds, our lives are to consider to revolve around this redeeming love of the Father. You know, the Bible contains poetry. We've just read some. The Bible contains history upon which that poetry was based. But the Bible is not just poetry and history. It is all that and it is more. It is, you might say, a manual for the soul. And when I recognize and remember that God's Word to me is more than just poetry and history, but it is a manual for my soul. And when I hear a call like this, that the wise person will do this, that true wisdom always fills its gaze with the great love, or in verse 43 literally, the loves, plural, of the Lord. That changeless, ever unfailing love which is so many-faceted that within it, in answer to prayer, there lies the solution to every need. And when I recognized that, and then I moved to the reality that, as Paul put it, Jesus is the one who is our wisdom. He became the wisdom from God. It goes from being not just poetry and history and not merely a manual to my soul, but the Word of God that breathes life and glory and joy into the fabric of my life and yours. For the simple reason that there was a centerpiece to the life of Jesus Christ. That centerpiece of His life was that redeeming love of the Father. On the centerpiece of the table of His life was your name. And as that story unfolds, that as your story is tied into that great story, we have a wondrous and a joyous soil from which gratitude springs. I would suggest that maybe sometime that you give yourself this little test that I've alluded to more than once here, to ask yourself, what is, it's a vital test, what is the centerpiece, what is the mark of your life? What is the aroma that you leave in the room you enter? And it all depends on the soil in which your life is planted. And there are a lot of possibilities, but I want to give you two. One is disappointment. I say that because it is so common, and I know that story, and I know yours, that there's a tendency and a possibility that the centerpiece of your life is disappointment. It comes from comparing yourself. It comes from rehearsing your own story about what might have been, what could have been, what should have been. There's a disappointment that can occupy the centerpiece of your table, the table of your life. And the psalmist urges you and me today to lay that aside. and to lay disappointment inside. It doesn't mean that you're dishonest about those realities. We read in Psalm 88 that God gives us to pray that there are times when darkness is my closest friend. That's how that psalm ends. But in Psalm 89, we see another picture where the psalmist says, I'm going to sing of your promises, knowing that he's going to end the psalm with real harsh questions. But he recognizes that what I do with my troubles is I put them in the context of God's redeeming love for me. And while I do not understand it all, I can turn those promises into a song, and I turn those disappointments into a prayer. And when I do, disappointment is not the centerpiece of my life, but gratitude. for one who is good, though I do not see it always. That Christ legitimately cried out on the cross, why God? The psalmist rightly prays, and we pray with him, how long, oh God? But in both cases, because Christ's centerpiece was your name and your story and ours, we have a song to sing. We have a hope that we can stand on. And we have a deliverance that creates gratitude to the one who loves us, the one who gave himself for us. Can't help but note that it's in the Eucharist, or the giving of thanks, the celebration of thanks, that that centerpiece take shape. So as you celebrate Thanksgiving, you may or may not have a fancy, elaborate, beautiful centerpiece. But even if it's just a candle, light the candle and give thanks. to the one whose steadfast love has delivered and will deliver because we sit around another table on another day in the new heavens, in the new earth. Would you pray with me? Lord, would you direct our hearts and minds to those things for which we can and ought to give you thanks. And those things go beyond a warm home and clothes and a table full of food and even family, as good and great as all those are. Lord, they are all pictures of your greater love and your greater provision, that we were made for family, that we were made for a home, and that we were made to be free and whole, and we were made for you. Thank you for the love that brings us home, that heals disease, that frees us from sin, and that ushers us into the world to come. It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.