Please take your Bible and join me in Psalm 92. We've been in a series since the beginning of November on the subject of gratitude. And I know that we've sung Christmas carols and there's Christmas decorations all around me. But this morning I wanted to conclude our series and kind of wrap together what we have worked through. And so let me remind you of that. begun our series in 1 Thessalonians 5 with Paul's reminder to us, admonition to us, to give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for us in Christ Jesus. So it is, gratitude is God's will for the believer. And then we looked at to whom we are to give thanks for the direction of our gratitude from Psalm 103. We are to bless the Lord with all of ourselves, a wholehearted praise to God. And then we saw that gratitude in the third week, that gratitude is the result of the salvation that God brings in our hearts. And we saw that from Luke 17. And then last week, we saw that the practice of gratitude is only made possible by the Spirit. And we are called to be filled with the Spirit. He says in Ephesians 5, do not be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. That's the command. And one of the marks of being filled with the Spirit is gratitude. Gratitude flows from a life that is filled with the Spirit. And then this past Wednesday night we took a break from Judges and looked at just one verse primarily, Psalm 100 verse 4, which says, Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him and bless his name. And we saw, we called that the invitation to gratitude. And this morning we'll wrap it all together with a message entitled, Gratitude is Good. Gratitude is good. Psalm 92 in your Bibles. Let's read through the Psalm together. You see the title there. It says, A Psalm, a song for the Sabbath. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre, For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands I sing for joy. How great are your works, O Lord, your thoughts are very deep. The stupid man cannot know, the fool cannot understand this, that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever. But you, O Lord, are on high forever. For behold, your enemies, O Lord, for behold, your enemies shall perish. All evildoers shall be scattered. But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. You have poured over me fresh oil. My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies. My ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants. The righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green. To declare that the Lord is upright, He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." Pray with me again. God, we thank You for Your Word. Thank You for how it is true and right. and declares to us who you are, explains who we are, and demonstrates the need we have for your grace and your mercy. We thank you for this opportunity to look at your word, help us to understand it, and by your spirit and grace, apply it for your honor, your name, and our joy, and we thank you for that. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 92 is unique in the Psalter because if you look at your Bible, you have a title there that's at the top of the psalm. And I read it just a second ago. It says, a psalm, a song for the Sabbath. Now, all of the psalms are psalms to be sung on the Sabbath, psalms to be used in the public worship of God. But this psalm is uniquely titled a psalm or a song for the Sabbath. Why is that significant? Well, let me give you a couple of things. Number one, the Sabbath is a day set apart by God and for God. The Sabbath was a day that God set apart as he finished his creation work in Genesis chapter 2, when it tells us that on the seventh day, God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. He has set a special day apart and The Christian Sabbath we observe as the Lord's Day Sunday, it's a day set apart that is different from all the rest. And so we ought to view Sunday, the Lord's Day, that way. That it is not a day to just do anything and everything. There's nothing wrong with recreation and doing fun, enjoyable things on Sunday. but that the Lord's Day is to be set apart for a specific rest and specific worship of God. It's a day that God created not because, in a sense, He needed rest, but to set an example of rest for us. Secondly, the Sabbath is a time, as I said, for the public worship of God, a day set apart. Should we worship God every single day of the week? Yes. That's private, personal, individual worship. But the church gathered is so important to the Christian's growth and life. It is a day that we set apart. to worship God together. And so this song is an evidence of that, that the Psalms would have been sung together, and this one specifically would have been sung on that day that was set apart for the people of God. I have two main points this morning as we look at the Psalm. The first is a simple statement. that gratitude is good. The title of the sermon is the first point of the sermon. The statement, gratitude is good. Would you all look with me at verse number one. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. Would you say that phrase out loud with me? It is good to give thanks to the Lord. Say that again. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. Why is it good to give thanks to the Lord? What's so good about it? Well, let's first consider letter A, the definition of gratitude. The definition of gratitude. How are we to understand what gratitude means? Well, the word thanks that's used in verse 1, it is good to give thanks, is used over 137 times in the English Standard Version of the Bible. And the word thanks comes from the Hebrew word yadah, which means to throw or to cast. So we are commanded in Scripture to throw or to cast our adoration. our praise, our blessing, our thanksgiving, our worship at the Lord, to throw it. So that's the picture there. Another faithful translation of the Hebrew word yadah is the word acknowledge or submit. So we could equally say that we are commanded to acknowledge the Lord in all things. Cross-reference your Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, if you're reading the Old King James, acknowledge. If you're reading a newer version, it probably says submit, or give to him, submit to him, and he will make your ways straight. So we are to submit to the Lord. We are thanking God by acknowledging that He is the source of all good. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. And you can define thanks or thankful biblically as a worshipful response to God, acknowledging Him for who He is and all He's done. It's a worshipful response to God, acknowledging Him for who He is and all He's done. The act of giving thanks is commanded all over the scripture. We've seen some of them in this series, right? Think about Psalm 100, verse 4. I just quoted that previously. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, into His courts with praise, be thankful to Him and bless His name. Another passage, 1 Chronicles chapter 16 verse 8, O give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. In that passage we are called to, we are to call upon the Lord, giving thanks to him, acknowledging him, and you'll notice that in that passage it's actually in giving thanks to God that is a public witness of the gospel to others. As we make known the wondrous deeds of the Lord, we at the same time are making known the deeds of the Lord to the world around us. Psalm 30 verse 4, sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, give thanks to His holy name. So there's a combination of thanks and praise. Many more passages like that in both the Old and the New Testaments. Thankfulness is an acknowledgement of our submission to God, but it's also a joyful overflow of all that I am and all that I have to God. Well, gratitude is right. It is the right thing to do as believers, to give thanks. But this text takes it further in verse 1, when the psalmist says it is good to give thanks to the Lord. Why is it good? Well, letter B, it's also the nature of gratitude. the nature of gratitude. Why is it good to give thanks? Well, call to mind what we just said about the Sabbath. That this is a psalm of the Sabbath. It's interesting to me that God defines gratitude as good with the same Hebrew word that God used to define his creation pre-fall. When he created the world, right before he rested on the Sabbath, he looked at his creation and what did he say, folks? It is good. Picture God doing that in Genesis 1. Picture him doing that. God made the light and the darkness and the land and the sky and the waters and he called it what? Good. Then he made the plants and the trees and the sun and the moon and the stars and then he called them? Talk to me. Good. He made fish and birds and every kind of creature that would creep on the earth and he called them? Good. Then God created man in his own image, and in the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. And he speaks this blessing over them, and he calls it? Good. Connect that same word with Psalm 92, verse 1. And what God is doing here. He is inviting us into the same practice of goodness and enjoyment of Him. Thinking rightly about Him, acknowledging Him as the giver of every good and perfect gift from above. So as we speak, as we express gratitude, God is looking at that very action and attitude, that articulation of gratefulness, and He is defining it as good. So in our thanksgiving and our satisfaction in Jesus Christ, because of what Jesus has done, nothing that we have done, He looks at and He calls us good. And we are not good by nature, we are sinners by nature. But because of what Jesus has done, God has accepted us on the basis of that. And that is the gospel. The countenance of God has forever been turned favorably on us because of Christ. Because He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's the nature of gratitude. Let us see the object of gratitude. The object of gratitude again in verse 1. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. The object of gratitude makes the gratitude good. And you'll notice here that LORD is in all caps, which the translator does to help us know that this is the name Yahweh, the covenant name of the Lord that speaks to God's covenant love and faithfulness. The psalmist also, in verse 1, calls him the Most High. That's unique, and I thought about tracing that through the Bible that's titled The Most High. But here's just one cross-reference for you. Psalm 97, verse 9. He is the Most High. He is the Ultimate and Sovereign One. A question to ask ourselves as we look at this text is a subjective question. Is the God of the Bible my Most High? I realized that He is the Most High. Like, that is a position that He alone holds. But, is He your Sovereign? In the sense, in the subjective sense. Is He the One whom you've submitted your life to? Is He the One whom you're living for? If you're filled with ingratitude, then you are not evidencing the fact that He is, in fact, the Sovereign One of the Universe. You know, it's not natural to give thanks. We saw this on Wednesday night as a cross-reference, Romans chapter 1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, neither give thanks to Him, but became futile in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Paul in Romans chapter 1 is describing the human condition apart from the gospel, apart from Christ, and it's one that's filled with ingratitude. Arrogant and prideful people do not give thanks to God, but we who are believers have every reason to give thanks to God. Why is it good to give thanks to God? Well, it's because of who He is and what He has done. His very name here speaks about His character. And our gratitude in light of that is expressing it back to him. Which brings us, letter D, to the practice of gratitude, expounded in verses two through four. Or last part of verse one through verse three, rather. To sing praises to your name, O Most High. To declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night. To the music of the lute and the heart, to the melody of the lyre. So in light of verse 2, and his steadfast love in the morning, his faithfulness at night, gratitude is the only appropriate response. The only appropriate response to a God who shows steadfast love in the morning and faithfulness at night is to communicate that to him. And the psalmist mentions singing in praise, declaring his truth in singing as an appropriate expression of thankfulness. I mentioned this last week, but our singing comes from a heart that has been changed by God. We as Christians actually want to sing. We express our thankfulness through singing. Thankful Christians are singing Christians. Communicating our thanks to God through song. God has intentionally designed singing for that purpose. It's not so that we can just be good singers and be seen as the world as someone who can sing really well, but we are to use our voices and our song to glorify the Lord. Remember that this is a psalm for the Sabbath. Again, I bring this up because this is not merely private, personal worship, but this is public worship. You are to sing not only on your own, but you are to sing to one another and together. Congregational singing is so important. So, as we quoted in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, singing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Other people need to hear you sing. Other people need to hear you lift up your voice. You need to hear others do the same toward you Because it's toward the Lord gratitude produces this good result God commands us to give thanks because it is good for him to receive things and it is good for us to express it But again, I keep asking the question why? that brings us to the second main point this morning, which is the reasons and why it is good. And the text, I think, makes it quite clear why gratitude is good. There are four reasons that we'll see here. Letter A, first of all, gratitude leads to joy. Gratitude leads to joy in verse four. For you, O Lord, he says, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands I sing for joy. So gratefulness seems to be the switch that transforms God's work into our joy. God is working. God can be working all around us, indeed He is, but gratitude turns that into our joy, where we actually see it as a wonderful thing. Verse four, when I see God's hand at work, at the works of your hands, I sing for joy. The point is that grateful people are happy people. You want to see a miserable person? Look for an ungrateful person. You want to see a happy person? Look for a grateful person. Secondly, let there be gratitude enables us to see reality. Gratitude enables us to see reality. Not only does it lead to joy, but it helps us to see things as they truly are. What do I mean by that? Well, let me set this up for a second. For some of us, gratitude feels a bit fake, doesn't it? You see someone who's just really, really happy and really, really thankful, full of gratefulness, and there's just something that goes off in our minds, potentially, that just says, something off there. I mean, do they not see the problems going on in the world around them? Are they just so locked into themselves that they can't see that everybody else is struggling? Some people are hardwired to see the world negatively. to believe that that is authenticity. Like, if you want to be real cynical, if you want to be real superficial and shallow, then just be happy and grateful all the time. Gratefulness is shallowness because you're not, in some people's view, seeing things and facing reality. Gratitude can feel like you're plastering a clown smile to cover up a lot of pain, and no doubt, for some, that's true. But that's not what the Bible is talking about. Gratitude is actually the opposite of cynicism. Cynicism is shallow. Negativity is shallow because you're not seeing things. You're being so controlled by your emotions and your feelings and the way things are looking to you that you're not seeing the reality of God's work. But verse 5 tells us how great are your works, O Lord. A grateful person can't help but see God at work. Even in the difficulties, even in the trials, even in the pain, how great are your works, O Lord. Your thoughts are very deep, and we know from other places in Scripture that His thoughts are higher than ours. They're so much more profound than ours could ever be. Gratitude is like a long snorkel that allows us to breathe in the deep water of God's mysterious and even sometimes painful work. Another way you could look at it is that gratitude is a flashlight that enables us to see in the dark of the room that we're in, in God's dark and mysterious sometimes ways. Nowhere is this more obvious, the dark and mysterious ways of God, than at the cross. That Jesus died on a cross and the place went dark. You remember that? Who would have ever imagined that the God of all eternity, the most powerful person in the universe would come in the form of man and die for sinners? This is amazing news and yet it seemed incredibly dark. A perfectly holy and just God declaring sinners righteous. This is God's work. All of His works for us as Christians are revealed in the scripture. All that God has chosen, and God is more than this, but God has chosen to reveal Himself in the Word of God. So we ought to know God's Word so that we might embrace His works. And it's a battle to be thankful in spite of difficult circumstances, and yet that's exactly what God calls us to. So gratitude is good because it leads to our joy, gratitude is good because it helps us to see the reality of God's works, but let her see, gratitude is good because the world will eventually be judged. Verse 6, the stupid man cannot know, the fool cannot understand this. Please understand that when God uses the word stupid here, he is not knocking on people's intelligence. He's not humiliating anyone. The way stupid is used here is in the sense of dullness. You can have a really big brain and use it in a really terrible way. So the Bible calls that dullness or stupidity. An example of using our brains in a way that's like this is to eliminate God from being part of our lives. We can use our God-given intelligence to simply ignore God, neglect God, disobey God, not think about God. Psalm 14 verse 1, the fool has said in his heart that there is no God. And the example that the psalmist gives of this kind of dullness or stupidity is in verse 7, when he says that though the wicked sprout like grass and all the evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever. So, this is the same kind of thing that Asaph was going through in Psalm 73 when he expressed, why do the wicked seem to be flourishing and doing well while I, over here, am trying to serve God and things are going terribly? There is this appearance that the wicked are actually doing well, but end of verse 7 says they're doomed to destruction forever. What he's saying is similar to Romans 1, that although they knew God, they didn't honor him as God or give thanks to him, but became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened, darkened even to the place of death. Folks, to not give thanks to the one who made us and who loved us is to expose our dark and foolish heart. Believers ought not to be so short-sighted about this present world. The wicked only sprout like grass for a short time, but their destruction is sure. In Christ, those of us who know Christ are not spiritually stupid like those in verse 6, but instead recognize the truth that the psalmist expresses in verse 8 when he could contrast the eternal punishment of the wicked with the eternal reign of God. Verse 8, the very center of the psalm. But you, O Lord, are on high forever. You, O Lord, are on high forever. While many may oppose God now, His rule in reign is still sure. He will vindicate His name and rule over all forever. In contrast to the temporary, inflating, sprouting-like weeds kind of exalted, He is the one who's defining true success. As the people of God, we may be tempted to look on others, the prosperity of the wicked, with envy or even frustration. But we need this reminder of what is to come, that the wicked will not stand in the judgment. God will reign forever. Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or sit in the way of scoffers, or walk in the way of the ungodly, but they will not perish. They will be as the end of the psalm talks about. This brings us to letter D. It is good to give thanks to the Lord because he causes his people to flourish. Verses 10 and 11. But you have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox. You have poured over me fresh oil. My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies. My ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants. When we give thanks to God for His exaltedness, His on-highness in verse 8, He opens our eyes to a correct assessment of who we are as His people. The thing that ties this all together is the Hebrew word exalted in verse 10. which has the same meaning of the word in verse 8 translated for exaltedness. So there's a link here that when we see God for who He is, He in His grace begins to help us understand who we are in Him. We begin to see that He has raised us up, He has exalted us. He uses that word horn there to explain that He gives us the strength of the Lord. The strength of the Lord is flowing through us and in us. The fresh oil refers to a fresh consecration, like that of Romans 12 where we become living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Verse 11 speaks of this victory that we have by the hand of the Lord. All of us have been given victory because of Jesus and His work. Gratitude opens our eyes to see that victory. It's possible for us to be surrounded by songs of deliverance and yet deaf and blind to them. Some of us are convinced this morning that God could not possibly be for them. because the trials are so bad. But the Lord is the one who promises victory, and what God is saying is that we should give thanks to the Lord, because He has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Verses 12 through 14 explain this flourishing even further. The righteous flourish, verse 12, like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green. The palm tree and the cedar here are pictures of stability and durability. In contrast to verse 7, the instability and fragility of the grass. And notice in verse 13 that we are planted. We are not indigenous to God's presence. In other words, we're not already there. God must put us in that place. Our status is not naturally, but supernaturally provided. And therefore, verse 14, when our physical capacities are shrinking, Our faculties are failing. We could begin to assume that we have nothing to contribute, but here God is saying that God will produce the fruit in us. Verse 14, they still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green. It's at unlikely times and in unlikely ways in the very season when there is pain and loss that can make us naturally feel brittle and bitter and barren that God enables us to flourish. and to bear fruit. The encore of fruitfulness is declared in verse 15, to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him. The fact is that we're full, naturally, of unrighteousness that needs to be cleansed, but there is no unrighteousness in the Lord. And so we can declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock or my strength. This is an encore of the goodness of God that began the psalm. It is good to give thanks because He is this. He is our strength. As Derek Kidner, our commentator, points out, so what began with our lips giving thanks continues with our lives giving thanks. It's a huge picture of the fact that we become what we worship. Bitter people, selfish people, people whose confidence rests in themselves begin to shrivel up and turn inward. But grateful people turn outward and produce fruit at the hand of the Lord. So how is God doing this in your life? How is God producing fruit in your life that in turn makes you thankful? Let's finish with application this morning. Number one, we ought to be reminded of the true hope through Christ and the gospel. The psalm paints a picture here of God who is at work amidst so much difficulty. And again, singing this on the Lord's Day, the hope that we have in Christ should never be forgotten by His people. So don't be discouraged and don't be distracted by the apparent and temporary success of the world around you. Because we who know Christ have the greatest hope and therefore the greatest reason to give thanks. and praise. We've been given sight to see God as He truly is. It is good for us to give thanks. How do we do that? We express it by praising God, by being faithful to attend on the Lord's day, by spending time in His Word and prayer, by giving the truth of the Gospel to others. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. Let's pray. God in heaven, thank you for your word to us. Thank you for your truth that abides always and forever. Take this message and use it in our hearts. Thank you for what you have done for us. Help us to become thankful people by your grace and your spirit. We thank you for your work now. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you stand as we sing in response?