So we're looking at Psalm 107 this morning. I won't read the whole Psalm, but we'll begin with the opening verses. Psalm 107, verse one. I give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. For his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Now go down to verse 33. Verse 33, he turneth rivers into a wilderness and the water springs into dry ground, a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. He turneth the wilderness into a standing water and dry ground into water springs. And there he maketh the hungry to dwell. that they may prepare a city for habitation, and sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly, and suffereth not their cattle to decrease. Again they are minished, and brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way. Yet setteth he the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock. The righteous shall see it and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. And may God bless his word today. There was a farmer who was visited by one of his city relatives. Before dinner, the farmer bowed his head and said grace. His sophisticated relative jeered, this is old fashioned. Nobody with an education prays at the table anymore. The farmer admitted that the practice was old and even allowed that there were some on his farm who did not pray before their meals. Feeling justified, the relative smirked, so enlightenment is finally reaching the farm. Who are these wise ones? The farmer replied, my pigs. My pigs. So we're thinking about thankfulness today and we have a lot to be thankful for. A lot to be thankful for. Now, the last few days, we've seen some substantial rain in our region, bringing a degree of relief to those who are low on water, especially tank water, bringing some relief to the fires, although not all the fire areas receive rain, but it is a great relief to many people. But should we think, well, you know, God is happy with Australia now. No, God's provision of rain to parts of Australia does not in any way mean that he's pleased with the nation. As Matthew 5 verse 45 says, he sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. And also that in Luke 6 verse 35, it says, he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Well, that tells you something about our God. There's no reason he should be kind even to the thankful and the righteous, but he's even kind to the unthankful and the evil. What a blessed God he is. And so that doesn't mean he's pleased with the nation at all. And all this rain has been reported by the news organizations. But do you think any of them gave glory to God for blessing the land with rain? Of course, it's a silly question, isn't it? In fact, they specifically denied that God sent the rain. This is from The Australian, a report in The Australian just from the other day. Scientists say the deluge wasn't due to divine intervention. Instead, the positive Indian Ocean Dipole, a climatic phenomenon of near record intensity, had finally ended. It signals the arrival of typical summer conditions, a fellow from the Bureau of Meteorology said. We've seen a return to normalcy, and the arrival of the northern monsoon has given us the tropical moisture that systems can tap into. So it's the Indian Ocean Dipole. That's who we want to give thanks to for this. Well, these atheistic scientists are fools. They're literally fools. Romans 1 verse 22 says, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Psalm 14 verse 1 says, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. So that's not me calling them a fool. The scripture says, if you say there's no God, he doesn't send the rain, then you're a fool according to God. Now, there were some other reports that did attribute the rain to a divine power. The Chinchilla Times said mother nature delivered rain over parts of the region. Mother nature, that's paganism, isn't it? Earth worship, the earth as God. But you know, paganism is acceptable in modern Australia. Christianity, no, no, but paganism, that's fine. That's fine, you smoke ceremonies and all these. Paganism is accepted. Can you imagine the uproar if the ABC News said, God Almighty, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has mercifully blessed the nation with rain. Imagine that. Of course, it couldn't happen. We know the ABC stands for anything but Christian. But just imagine if a newsreader said that, they'd be hauled off, there'd be inquiries and they'd lose their job, of course, maybe be prosecuted as well for hate speech. But it's just not accepted today. And now I was talking to a friend the other day and we were discussing the rain and how wonderful it was. And I quoted this verse from Psalm 107, the eighth verse, in relation to that, all these people receiving rain. I said, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men, that they might acknowledge God for sending these blessings. And so what the psalmist, he has this desire. It's a desire expressed that God would be honored for all he is and all he has done for man. And just by the way, you notice the verse eight there starts with O-H. Whereas the verse one starts with just O. Two O's, but spelled differently. And there is a slight difference between them. The O in verse one is addressed to a person or persons. It's like a plea to them, O, and it's usually followed by a pronoun, O God or whatever. But this is O, give thanks to the Lord. This is addressing people to give thanks to the Lord. Whereas the O in verse eight, It's an interjection. It expresses a range of emotions. In this case, it's a deep desire for something. Oh, I wish this would happen. I wish that people would praise the Lord. So you have those two Os, but it's not an important distinction, but you notice those things. And he has this desire. We have this desire that people would praise the Lord, but unregenerate man is unthankful to God. Man is unthankful to God. Romans 1 verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. One follows the other. They don't want to glorify God. They don't want to be thankful. What follows? Vain imaginations, darkened in the heart, and then following after vanities and sin and all those sodomy and all these things in gratitude. And these last days we live in, they were prophesied by the Apostle Paul to be characterized by many things. And one of those things in 2 Timothy 3, verses one and two, in the last days, perilous times shall come, men shall be lovers of their own selves, et cetera, unthankful. Men shall be unthankful in the last days. These are the days we live in, unthankful to God. But all of us can become infected with an ungrateful heart and must guard against it. It's not just all those ungrateful people, it's me, it's my ingratitude. It's there, it's lurking, and I need to be watching for it. So this psalm is a call for men to praise and thank the Lord. It's a lesson in God's operations in the lives of his creatures, guiding them, providing for them, and delivering them. We have that familiar introduction in the verse one, Those exact same words are found in Psalm 106, Psalm 118, and 136 that opens all those Psalms. But then he goes on throughout the Psalm to describe five groups of distressed people for whom God mercifully interposes and delivers. And we looked at a couple of those in those opening verses. First of all, those he redeemed. He redeems the captives from their enemy and it's thought that this psalm was written to do with the Babylonian captivity and God bringing the captives out of Babylon back to the back to the land and He brings them out In verses 4 to 9 he rescues the lost travelers in verses 10 to 16 he liberates the prisoners and 17 to 22 he heals the sick and In 23 to 32 he delivers the mariners from the tempest from the storm and the wind and in each of those Cases they're in distress. There's the it looks like they're going to perish they cry to the Lord and he delivers them It goes over and over repeats itself So you get the theme of that of the psalm and then in the closing verses which we all also read from verse 33 We're showing God's governance over both man and nature to either curse or bless And I don't know if you noticed as we read in verse 33 there He turneth rivers into wilderness and the water springs into dry ground and What causes drought? God, he turns it into wilderness. He dries up the water springs. He turns a fruitful land into barrenness. It's the hand of God. It's not just random climatic events. God's hand does this, but it also, he doesn't just send drought, he sends the rain. where it says there in verse 35, he turneth the wilderness into a standing water and dry ground into water springs. He does both. He sends drought, he sends flood, because it's all under his care, under his providential hand. He's in control. We need to acknowledge that. Another characteristic of this psalm is that there are two refrains that recur throughout the psalm. The first refrain pertains to God's deliverance of needy, of the needy who cry unto him. That's in verses six, 13, 19, and 28. So, for instance, verse six, they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, he delivered them out of their distresses. And that's essentially repeated in those verses. They cried unto him, he delivers them. But there's another refrain which is really a corresponding exhortation to praise God that follows on from that cry for help and God delivering. And that's the verse eight. That's our focus this morning. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. And that's repeated there. that's repeated there four times throughout the psalm. There's not many psalms with refrains in them, this is one. And so it's for emphasis, he's trying to impress a great truth upon us, that God hears the cries of his people, he delivers them, but he expects praise from them in response. And it's thought that these two different refrains might have been sung antiphonally. That is, you might have had two choirs, one singing the one part and being answered by the second choir. You know, the Levites, they had these singers and they would use these psalms in different ways and with different techniques and so on. But we're not going to look at the whole psalm this morning. We just want to consider really the simple thought of the importance of giving thanks to God, how important it is to give thanks to God. And the first thing we'll note is that thanksgiving is a recognition of God's mercies. What is it to give thanks? What is it to praise? Well, the Hebrew word yada is translated both as thanks, you find in verse one, I give thanks unto the Lord and praise in the verse eight, where it says that men would praise the Lord. It's the same Hebrew word. And it's from the root for hand. And it literally means to stretch out the hand, to extend the hand. in a public acknowledgement of God, giving testimony for what He has done, it's stretching forth the hand to God, the open hand. God wants us to stretch forth our hands, not just our hands literally, but our hearts, and the hands are a symbol of that. And when we stretch out our hands, we know in 1 Timothy 2 verse 8, we're to lift up holy hands. It's the holy hands, hands of gratitude, hands of thanksgiving and praise to God. So this is the idea of that word that's being used for thanks and for praise. It reminds us that praise and thanksgiving are very closely related. When we're praising, there's an element of thanks. When we're thanking God, there's an element of praise. So they're almost interchangeable. But what is it to give thanks to God? Thanksgiving is saying God is the gracious giver. I am the unworthy recipient, thereby exalting God and humbling man. It's a confession, isn't it? God gives me all these things. I'm nothing without him. I have nothing without him. All I can do is receive them. And it's that acknowledgement, it's a humbling thing. And though man is the pinnacle of God's creation, man made in the image of God, what a high exalted position in the creation. This psalm repeats the phrase at the end of verse 8 and the other refrains, to the children of men. I mean, the psalmist could have just said to mankind, to people, but he uses this idiom, this phraseology, the children of men. That word for men is adam. It means, it's the idea of ruddy, it's from the earth. And it reminds us that where did man come from? didn't descend down from heaven. God made man from the dust of the ground. And we should always remember we are but dust and to dust we return. It's a humbling thing, isn't it? And for proud man, this is too difficult for most people to acknowledge. No, we are just dust. We're the children of men and we need God and we need to praise him. As we also think about the idea of thanks and praise, in English, think and thank are etymologically related and have as a common ancestor the ancient Indo-European root tong, meaning to feel or think. And so the idea of thanking, in English at least, it's the idea of thinking upon things and thinking upon the things we receive, but more importantly, thinking upon the one who gave them to us. So to thank originally had the connotation of good thoughts and loving memory towards the giver. When we thank, we are thinking, or we should be. Now as we think about other languages, their words for thank. Thanksgiving is associated with indebtedness to the giver. In Portuguese, Obrigado. Similar to how we might say much obliged. I'm obliged to you because you gave me something. There's an obligation. I'm in your debt. The French, merci. We have our word mercy. It's as if the recipient is asking the giver for mercy. The idea is that by receiving something, the person is under the benefactor's power. It's like asking for mercy. You've given me these things. I'm in your debt. Mercy, mercy. And that's how we should think of God when he bestows all these things upon us. We say, God, mercy. I'm obligated. I thank thee. And this gives us an understanding what it means to thank and praise him. And we have so many reasons, infinite reasons to praise him. I mean, there's just a few in this psalm. It opens with, give thanks for what? His mercy, well, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. His ever enduring mercies. Where would we be without the mercy of God? It is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions, they fail not. It's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. Ever enduring mercy. mercy that saves us. His goodness in the verse 8, we're to praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. And by the way, the Hebrew word for mercy is also translated in this psalm as goodness. It's the same Hebrew word. And also in the last verse, it's translated as loving kindness, mercy, goodness, loving kindness. It's all tied up in that one Hebrew word. And the psalm opens with his mercy and ends with his mercy. But his wonderful works, wonderful works, really encompasses everything. And it's not just his works to nature in general, but his works to who? To mankind. Because he's constantly being good to us and performing wonderful works on our behalf. To give thanks for his redemption, in verse two, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. If a person's been redeemed, what should they do? They should say so. They should testify and confess that and praise the Lord for it. Have you been redeemed? Do you say so? What an obligation we have. And that's our second point. Thanksgiving is an obligation. There's many exhortations in the scripture to give thanks to God. I won't read all those verses, but over and over it says, give thanks to the Lord. Offer unto God thanksgiving. In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. All our prayers should include thanksgiving. Every prayer. In everything, give thanks. In everything. And these are not just suggestions, these are commands. You need to give thanks to God for everything. The small things, the great things. When you go to eat your food, do you give thanks to the Lord? And say, this is from the hand of God, I give thanks. But there's many instances in the scripture of those who failed to give thanks to God. As we saw before in Romans 1 verse 21, unregenerate man, mankind in general, is not thankful, not thankful to God. That's just, you just look around you. Who gives thanks to God in this world? The children of Israel. after all that God had done for them. He took them out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. He delivered them from the Egyptians. He brought them into the land, but they were not thankful. They would murmur against him, rebelled against him, and they were not thankful, and God judged them for that. In the New Testament, in Luke chapter 17, remember the account, there were 10 lepers. 10 lepers and they wanted to be healed of their leprosy. They said in Luke 17 verse 13, Jesus master, have mercy on us. Have mercy on us. They cried to the Lord for mercy, just like in the psalm. What did he do? Well, he said, go show yourselves under the priests. It came that as they went, they were cleansed. God delivered them from their affliction. What happened then? One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. It's most likely the other nine were Jews. He was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, he didn't say, well, this is wonderful. One of them came back. I'm really thankful that even one of them came back. This is a remarkable thing. No, he didn't say that. He said, were they not 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? Where are the nine? They are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger. This stranger. He rebuked, he said, it's wrong. Every single one of them should have come back and given glory to God and thanked me for what I did. But only one came back. He expects it. God expects us to give thanks and praise to him. Ingratitude robs God of his glory. We know that God's name is jealous. Exodus 34 verse 14, he is a jealous God. And we know as Isaiah 42 says, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. He doesn't share his glory with man or any other false God. He receives all the glory and he will not give his glory to another. And so what happens is man attributes the blessings that come from God to other things like luck or fortune, or they thank their lucky stars. You ever heard that? That's wicked. And when they do that, instead of giving thanks to God, they're an offence to God. Well, that was fortunate. Well, that was a lucky thing that happened to me. And sometimes you see these people, maybe they've had an accident and they should have died, but they escaped, they came out of the wreck and they're fine. And they put the TV camera on them and they said, what do you make of that? They said, well, I'm gonna go and buy a lottery ticket. because it's their lucky day. They've got all this luck, they're going to buy a lottery ticket. No, what they should be doing is getting on their knees and saying thanks to God, giving glory to him. And you know, a lot of these, there's very few times, I've seen them a few times on the news, there's someone will give thanks to God and they'll say, God saved me from this and I give glory to God. But very seldom does that happen. Most of the time it's, boy, I was lucky. and all those things, and for Christians, we shouldn't really even use that word lucky. I know we sometimes do, but there's no such thing as luck. It's the hand of God in the great things and the small things, and there's a word that's really dropped out of Christian vocabulary in the last 150 years, which I would like to bring back, and it's the word providential or providence. the old time Christians, they would talk about the providence of God. And what that means is God's most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all these creatures and their works and their actions. And so it's the idea that God's providence is his hand in his creation. He didn't just make this world and sit back. He made the world and he governs this world. And he governs the events in our lives. He brings the blessings. He brings the trials to our lives as well. And we acknowledge that in that word providence. It's the providence of God. This is why it happened. But there's another thing that happens. There's many who advocate the idea of being thankful in general. for blessings without being thankful to anybody in particularly. And this idea, we need to have a spirit of thankfulness. And boy, I'm thankful about this or that. Well, thankful to who? Well, no, I'm just thankful. Or, you know, they have this rain and they're thankful to the Indian Ocean Dipole. The Indian Ocean Dipole doesn't care about your thankfulness. Who made the Indian Ocean Dipole anyway? God made it. Give thanks to God for it. But you hear this, oh, I'm a thankful person and I have a spirit of thankfulness. What's the point if you're not thanking the one who gave you those things? Someone said of this, it's a little like being married in general, being thankful in general. I'm just married in general. It's ridiculous, isn't it? There needs to be an object of our, of our thankfulness. Such people enjoy God's blessings without crediting him for bestowing them. And they deny the reality that, as James 1.17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. All our gifts come from heaven. He just showers them down every day, every moment of the day. and we acknowledge that, God's people acknowledge that. But the third point and final point is that thanksgiving is a delight. Now I've said it's an obligation, God commands us to give thanks and you don't want to have this attitude, well I better give thanks because God says I have to give thanks. That's not the attitude. Praise is a delightful thing. Thanking God is a wonderful, a beautiful thing. As the Psalm says, praise is comely for the upright. That's Psalm 33 verse one, Psalm 147 verse one. It is good to sing praises unto our God for it is pleasant and praise is comely. It's attractive. It's becoming. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And so it's a delight, firstly, to God. It's very pleasing to God when we praise and give thanks to him. In Hebrews 13 and verse 15, it describes thanks and praise in this way. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name, but to do good and to communicate, forget not. With such sacrifices, God is well pleased. He talks about a number of sacrifices, but one of those sacrifices is the sacrifice of praise, which we offer continually, which is the fruit of our lips, And God is well pleased with that sacrifice. And it is a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice of time. I'm going to lay aside the things that I want to do so I can give thanks to God. But it's a sacrifice of my pride. I'm humbling myself. I'm saying God is the giver. I'm the recipient. I'm nothing. He is everything. And it is a sacrifice. These are the sacrifices we offer in this present dispensation. He's pleased with those sacrifices. And in 1 Timothy 2 verses 1 to 3, He's giving instruction on prayer. I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, et cetera. He says this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. Giving thanks to God is good. It's acceptable in the sight of God. He's pleased. Don't we want to please God? We please God by praising him. So it's a delight to God. But praise is a delight to those who offer it. Thanksgiving blesses those who render it. You think how beneficial it is to ourselves when we offer praise to God. An example in 2 Chronicles 20. Well, this point is it brings victory to the believer. And so the children of Israel were going out against the enemy. And it was a curious method of warfare that they used. Their artillery was praise. It says there, this is Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20 verse 21. When he consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army, and to say, praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever. When they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were coming against Judah, and they were smitten. It was like that praise, it unlocked the armies of heaven to come and intercede for the children of Israel. It brought victory to the army through praise. New Testament, Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in Philippi. ill-treated there, taken and scourged, taken to the dungeon of the prison, fastened in the stocks. They're not getting out. It's midnight, they're sore. It must be an awful, you can imagine the vermin and everything there. What did they do? At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. They turned that place into a chapel. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. Immediately, all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loosed. Amazing. What unlocked the prison? God did. What unlocked God doing that? Praise. What if they had just been murmuring and complaining and navel-gazing? What would have happened? No, they praised and it brought the victory. And so, who doesn't want victory in their lives? Praise will bring that. Praise is also an antidote to sin. It keeps the heart soft towards God. We want soft hearts. We want receptive hearts to God. We want sensitive hearts to the Spirit of God that He can speak to us and we will hear Him. Because ingratitude makes the heart hard. A lot of hard-hearted people out there, they're ungrateful. Ingratitude leads to forgetting the Lord, which leads to sinning against Him. You're not thinking about what He's giving to us, and we're not thinking about those things. We forget that He's the bestower of them. We start to think, I'm just entitled to these things. Forgetting God leads to sin. That's what happened to the children of Israel. They soon forget His works. They waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. That's Psalm 106, 13, and 14. But thankfulness promotes love to God, which promotes obedience to him. And so the more we thank God, the more we praise God, the more our hearts are drawn to him, the more we love him. And the person who loves God keeps his commandments. The two go together. If we love God, we keep his commandments. and his commandments are not grievous, 1 John 5, 2 and 3. And here's another wonderful delight about praise and thankfulness. A thankful heart makes even the bitter circumstances of life sweet, like Paul and Silas, as we mentioned them before. I mean, what worse a place could you find yourself in if they turned that place into a slice of heaven on earth through praise? transform the place. I don't know if you've ever come across or even tried something called the tasteberry. It's a plant known for its berry that when eaten causes sour foods, even like lemons, subsequently consumed to taste sweet. It has an element in there and it affects your taste buds for about an hour after you eat this berry, this tasteberry, I think they call it. And so you eat this berry and you eat a slice of lemon and it tastes sweet. Has anyone ever tried one? I think you can get them, you can get the plant. And it's a remarkable thing. It turns the sour or the bitter into, it turns everything to sweetness. In Proverbs 27 and verse seven, it says, the full soul loatheth and honeycomb, but to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. To the hungry soul, what's the hungry soul? The soul who's hungering and thirsting after God. Even the bitter things in life become sweet if we hunger and thirst after his righteousness. That cross that we're commanded to take up as followers of Christ, that's a bitter cross. There's awful things associated with the cross, but when we hunger after the Lord, that cross becomes sweet, a sweet cross. And we can find things to give thanks to God for in every circumstance. Matthew Henry, he was at an old age, he was mugged on the street and robbed, and he wrote in his diary, Let me be thankful, first, because I was never robbed before. Second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life. Third, because although they took my all, it was not much. And fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed. Could you find four things, let alone, could you find one thing to give thanks for if something like that happened to you? But see, for the person with a heart full of thankfulness and gratitude towards God, there's sweetness in every circumstance. We can find things to praise God for in every trial of life. It's a delight, and furthermore, thanksgiving encourages others to likewise praise God. So it's not only a delight to God and to ourselves, it can be a delight to others. Psalm 40, verse three. It's contagious. You get around someone who's praising God, before long you'll be praising him too. And you can have that effect on others. You'll either cause them to praise God or clear off. They don't want to be around you, one or the other. But we ought to be the people who encourage others to praise God as we give glory to Him, say, thank the Lord for this, and God has been so kind in doing this. And then they'll respond in like manner. Remember in in Acts 16 Paul and Silas they prayed and saying praise is unto God and the prisoners heard him The Holy Spirit just put that in there. The prisoners heard him. This wasn't a low-key Singing time. No, they heard him. They knew what was going on and it's a testimony. It's a good testimony Giving thanks to God, you know we can We can talk about this, and the scriptures have so much to say. Bunyan in the Pilgrim's Progress, he's a master of illustration. In the Interpreter's House, it says, he had them into another room where there was a hen and chickens, and bid them observe a while. So one of the chickens went to the trough to drink, and every time she drank, she lifted up her head and her eyes toward heaven. "'See,' said he, "'what this little chick doth, "'and learn of her to acknowledge whence your mercies come "'by receiving them with looking up.'" We can learn from those hens. They can teach us something. You receive and you look up to God. Now, we talked about the ingratitude of the world, and yes, the world must be condemned for its ingratitude to God. We must first, though, look to ourselves. 1 Peter 4, 17, judgment must begin at the house of God. We can't begin to take the mote out of another's eye before we first take the beam out of our own. And we're all at fault in this area. None of us can say, I have rendered unto the Lord all that he is worthy of. None of us. You know, the normal Christian experience is to be one of abundant thanksgiving. That's Colossians 2, 6 and 7. What degree of thanksgiving should we have? A bit here and a bit there? No, abounding. It's like, not just full, overflowing thanksgiving. That's how our lives ought to be. Colossians 3 17 says and whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Giving thanks to God and the Father by him He's talking about every word every deed at every moment Should be seasoned with the spirit of thanksgiving to God We do it in Christ's name. We do it with thanksgiving to God and Just it's always in our mind. It's always in our heart. This happened. I have a safe trip home. Thank you, Lord, for getting me home. Just constantly, it's not something we relegate to your time, your devotional time in the morning or before you go to bed. No, it's an ever-present attitude of the heart. The final verse of this psalm, verse 43, it says, who so is wise and will observe these things Even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. He's talking about the wise person. And that wise person will observe, will consider, and will think about what these things in the psalm, that people get in distress, they cry to the Lord, God delivers them, and there's praise to be rendered. The wise person will think about that. And we should be thinking about that and considering and meditating that God does all these things for me every day. And what's the effect? That person shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. That's the mercy of God, the goodness of God. Very few people understand the loving kindness of the Lord because very few are wise, very few really observe and consider and meditate on these things. but with God's help, we can do that. We can consider and think about all that God has done, and we can understand the loving kindness of the Lord. And well might we pray with Charles Wesley. Oh, for a heart, for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free, a heart that's sprinkled with the blood, so freely shed for me. Let's pray.