Our scripture reading this morning is Psalm 50. Psalm 50. And the text for the sermon is verse 14. Psalm 50, the mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken. and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself. Hear, O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee. For the world is mine and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High. And call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentest with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother. Thou slanderest even thine own mother's son. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me, and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon is verse 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, we all agree that today is Thanksgiving Day, but why exactly is it called Thanksgiving Day. And I don't mean to refer so much to the national holiday now, but as a Christian, what would make this to be a day of Thanksgiving and how will it be different from the way the rest of America is commemorating, celebrating this day. We can hope that this is Thanksgiving Day for us, not merely because it is a nationally declared holiday. Of course, that's the roots of it. America has traditionally declared the fourth Thursday of November Thanksgiving Day. And it's also true that the people of America today will be giving thanks They will speak those words frequently. The president customarily writes a declaration for the day and expresses reasons why we as a people should be thankful. But those things in themselves are not the reason why this is a day of thanks for the church. Again, it is true that it's in our church order because of the national holiday. This was not a holiday in the Netherlands when our forefathers lived there, but it is something that was added to the church order in 1914 in the CRC, and it became an official day for worship. Reform branch, therefore, in America and in Canada, though on a different day, they have a worship service on this national day of Thanksgiving. That creates a problem a bit for a preacher and for what he should preach on. Normally, our special worship services are connected with a wonder work of salvation. We understand Thanksgiving as part of salvation. It's the third part of the Heidelberg Catechism, how to express gratitude for the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. And so when we come together for Christmas, it's to commemorate a special wonder of God's work of salvation, the birth of the son, and to Good Friday, the death of his son, and Easter, and Pentecost and Ascension Day, all those are connected with a glorious work of God in Jesus Christ. But now Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving Day has to do with earthly material gifts. It is not simply another day of thanks, another day when we thank God for salvation, but it has to do with material things. And it is intended to be a complement to Prayer Day. Historically, prayer day was very much connected with the work of the farm. Therefore, in the spring, before the field work began, the church came together in order to pray and ask God's blessing upon the work that was about to begin in the fields, that God would provide the rain and the sunshine in the right amounts, that God would protect the crops from hail and from storms and from swarms of disastrous insects, and recognizing that all of their labor was empty unless God would cause these things to happen and give them a crop. And then Thanksgiving Day, came after that a fitting conclusion to the farmer's work. The harvest was in, what God determined to give them for that year was gathered, and so they came together to give thanks to God for his provision for another year. Today, of course, most of God's people in America are not farmers who depend directly on God's hand. for providing them their daily needs. Rather men go off to work and take home a paycheck or men have a business and live off the profits of the business. But it is still good for us to pause once a year at least and as a church to pray and to recognize that all of our strenuous efforts to earn daily bread are completely dependent upon our God. And then to pause a second time in the year and to recognize God has provided for us again, and we lift up our voice to praise Him for this provision. That then is the reason why the church established Thanksgiving as an official day for worship, that the saints may gather together, give thanks in a unique way here in worship to give thanks, and then to remind ourselves this is a daily thing. Even for material things, this is This should be our life, a life of thankfulness. With that in mind, we consider the text that comes to us with that command, offer unto God thanksgiving. We take then as the theme for the sermon, called to offer thanksgiving to God. Notice in the first place, the thanksgiving. Secondly, the offering, and thirdly, the command. Called to offer Thanksgiving. We'll look at what Thanksgiving is. Secondly, what does that mean to offer it? And then thirdly, notice this is God's command to us. So what is Thanksgiving? The word Thanksgiving, interesting word, it gives us a very beautiful and meaningful picture, the word Thanksgiving literally means to throw out the hand, and then by that to point at someone. That's why it means sometimes to confess, to confess something about God, and other times it means to point the hand in the sense of giving thanks to someone, pointing to someone else. It suggests a picture of a man who has been lifted out of extreme poverty and misery. He's been clothed and fed. He's been given a home to live in. He's been given a job. So his future looks much, much better. He is very happy. He's very thankful for what has been done for him. And whenever he has the opportunity, then he will be quick. He's overjoyed to throw out the hand, to point to the man who did this for him, to talk of his generosity, to talk of his kindness. He points out the hand, throws out the hand, points to the one who has done this. Three things, therefore, are implied in the idea of thanksgiving. If you draw from that picture of throwing out the hand or pointing, first of all, when one points to another, he is pointing away from himself, obviously. Thanksgiving does not point to oneself. as the cause for anything that one has. It begins with the knowledge we have nothing. We have nothing of ourselves. Anything we have received, we have received from someone else. That's the idea of pointing away to someone else, not me, someone else. Secondly, Thanksgiving implies humility. A feeling, a conviction even, of unworthiness. Unworthiness. That one does not deserve what he has received. You see how important that is? Because as soon as one is convicted that he deserves what he got, that he either earned it or he's worthy enough of it, then he's not going to be thankful for it. He will say, this is what I have coming. This is what I deserve. So with thankfulness is the conviction, I do not deserve any good. And what I've received is far beyond anything that I could ever expect to receive. A conviction of unworthiness. Pointing away from self to someone else, a feeling conviction of unworthiness, and thirdly, it implies that the man knows who his benefactor is. so that he will praise him for the goodness that he has received. Thanksgiving is given to that person, therefore, freely, not with an ulterior motive, but out of love for that individual, out of true gratitude to that individual. He knows who has given him what he has. Those three things are implied in pointing away, not to self, but to someone else, convicted of one's own unworthiness and knowing then to whom one points who has blessed. You can see then that the first question in thanksgiving is not for what should we give thanks but to whom should we give thanks. And the answer the text is God. Offer to God, your Thanksgiving to God. Thanksgiving that arises out of a heart that is humble before God, does not take pride or credit for anything at all that we have. It is a heart that confesses, I have nothing and I can do nothing. without God, a heart that realizes how undeserving it is to receive any good, a heart that confesses, my sins have forfeited any right to any good thing from God. I deserve only His wrath. I do not deserve the great abundance that God has given to me. I don't deserve anything good whatsoever. I am completely unworthy. Thanksgiving points to God, points to Him, and praises Him for His amazing goodness. He is the Most High God who rules over all things, the One who has created all things by the Word of His power, continues to uphold all things, and by His hand supplies the need of every creature and of every human being on the face of the earth. They all receive what they have from His hand. Remember the Heidelberg Catechism's beautiful description of providence? that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and strength, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. Conscious of this, the believer never tires of pointing to God giving him thanks for all that he has. Scripture gives us countless examples of thankfulness, of coming back to the one and thanking. The leper, the one Samaritan among the 10 who came back to Jesus and thanked him for restoring him to health and strength. Why? Because he knew Jesus had healed him. Jesus praying to his father, Father, I thank thee that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes. Jesus is preaching and some did not believe and some did. And what's the explanation for that? His father had done this. Father, I thank thee that thou hast done this. Striking that whenever Paul wrote to a church, and he usually would start with something positive. About some good thing that he had heard about the church, their love, their faith, their zeal for the truth. But he always wrote it this way. I thank God. When I heard. About your love, your faith, your zeal. I thank God why? Because it was God's work. It was his gift. He pointed to God. This stands in stark contrast with the ungodly. Their thanksgiving, such as it is, is not to God. They may express thanks. They may express thanks for the economic system, whether it's capitalism or communism that is provided for them. They may give thanks to their parents for giving them what they have so that they can go forward and have opportunities. They may give thanks for the education that they got But finally it comes back to them, I'm thankful for the things that I had the opportunity so that I can, so that I can. The text says, offer to God your thanksgiving. Throw out your hand to Him, sing His praises. For what then should we give thanks? For material things only, for spiritual things only, for both? Well, surely we must give thanks today for material things, for food, for homes, for clothes, for family, for health, for a congregation. We must give thanks. Yet our rejoicing must not be in the things. That's the danger, that's the difficulty here. The believer stops right there, on the things. He looks about him today and he recognizes, I have an abundance. If you're living in America, you almost certainly have an abundance. when you compare that to other nations in the world. So they can list a long list of things that they have, and they can even say, I am thankful. They're not really. They may be happy that they have these things, but they are not thankful. There is a sharp difference. between the believer and the unbeliever on Thanksgiving Day. And if I may illustrate that sharp difference, I don't want to use farmers because they so clearly depend on God and we all have some knowledge at least of farming. But two farmers consider who live right next to each other. Their lands touch each other. And so whatever happens to the one farmer happens to the other as far as land is concerned and what God does in the weather. And they both, at the end of the year, let's say, received a bumper crop. But the unbeliever explains it this way. We planted good seed this year, and we got the rain when we needed it. And we put the herbicide and the insecticide on it, and it worked. And we were lucky. The hail that hit the farm three miles down missed us. My hard work paid off this year. You see, those are his gods. Good seed, good chemicals, hard work, and luck. And now he thanks those gods for giving him the bumper crop. For the believer, it is entirely different. The believing farmer takes notice of the same things, but he acknowledges God's hand in all these things. God sent the rain when we needed it. In the providence of God, the herbicides and the insecticides worked, and we did not have swarms of insects that destroyed our crop. In the providence of God, the hail did not hit our field of corn. God gave us a good crop. He recognizes that God's goodness is manifest. The goodness of God as such, that He is a good God, is evident to the unbelieving farmer. He doesn't acknowledge it, but that God has given all this indicates God is not an evil God, He's a good God. But the believer prays when he sees the evidence of God's goodness that God's blessing will accompany his good gifts because he recognizes merely the fact that he has that bumper crop is not evidence of God's blessing. because the unbeliever received it as well as he. So may thy blessing accompany the good gifts that he has is his prayer. And Lord, do not allow me to set my heart on these things that I now have from thy hand. The believer rejoices in God's work in supplying his needs. That is pointing to God. That's what it is. Crediting God, praising God for what he has done. And this must be our attitude as well. Today we give thanks. We have an abundance. But we must be very conscious that while that abundance we have does indicate that God is a good God, that it is also necessary that his blessings come. Good things and abundance of things in themselves are not necessarily a blessing. They can be, in fact, a curse. May God's blessing accompany this. And, oh Lord, do not allow my heart to be set upon these things. He has opened His hand wide. He has showered us with material things. We point to Him. We thank Him. The text says, offer, offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Lord. Offer, what does that mean? That's the second point of the sermon, offering. Any Israelite who would read that, and surely we, when we read the word offer, what do we think? We think of the temple. We think of the place of sacrifice. They offered their sacrifices to God. Well, that surely must govern our thinking here, too, offering our thanksgiving. God, in his ceremonial law, gave many sacrifices. There were four different sacrifices for sin. The sin offering and the trespass offering, which were for specific sins that would cover them by the blood. Blood had to be shed in order for anyone to approach God in worship. So those two were specific. You knew this was a sin in your life you had committed. You brought a sin offering or a trespass offering. There were regulations for that. Two other offerings that had to do with sin were, first of all, a whole burnt offering. The whole animal is offered to remind Israel, I need to be covered completely, the whole of me. And then the fourth was something called a peace offering, sometimes a thank offering. It involved the shedding of blood, because it was given at a time when a child of God did not have a specific sin that he was concerned about in his life. He repented of them. He was in good standing with God so far as he knew. And he would bring this as a as a way of fellowshipping with God. But he still knew that no matter how good he might be, there were many sins in his life that needed to be covered. So he still brought blood But the important thing of that sacrifice is that it was divided up. Part of it went to the altar, part of it went to the priest to eat, and part of it went to the man who came with the sacrifice. And he was encouraged to share that meal then with widows, Levites, and strangers. It was clearly a fellowshipping with God, that peace offering. Four different sacrifices. that would shed blood, and one of them especially, having to do with fellowship with God. Now, especially to that fourth, there is another sacrifice. It's called the meat offering. And meat offering is confusing to us because when we think of meat, we think of the flesh of animals. We think of beef, or ham, or chicken. That's not what meat means. In the King James Version, in the time this was translated, meat simply means food. Food. So, the Israelites brought a meat offering, but it was not flesh. There was no bloodshed. It was connected to the peace offering, or the thank offering. It was connected to that. And then, they would bring their flour, and these four elements all have symbolic meaning. They would bring flour and make bread out of it. They would have oil there, a picture of the Spirit. They would accompany it with frankincense, which is incense pointing to the prayers of God's people that arise as a sweet savor. And they would have salt. And that points to savoriness. It would taste good. And they would make loaves of bread out of that. There was not to have leaven, because leaven could be a picture of something that would influence the whole, could be a corrupting influence, such as our nature has. So no leaven. And then wine, the fifth thing, pointing to spiritual joy with God. unbloody offering to God, which accompanied the bloody offering that had to come first, then was a way of saying thanks to God and even fellowshipping with Him at the meal. This is a picture of a child of God offering Himself. The Bible tells us that's what we need to do. Romans 12, verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And that meat offering, that food offering in the Old Testament was pointing ahead to this command. offering the whole of ourselves to God in thanksgiving. A picture of someone who is a child of God. He is of a new lump, no leaven. He is filled with the Spirit. He has joy in his soul in God. The praises of God are upon his lips. He's the salt of the earth. That's a picture, first of all, of Jesus, who is perfect, but also of his people that he would make perfect so they can offer themselves unto God. Again, first the blood, covering the sins, and then the thank offering to God. Offer your thanksgiving to God. How are we to do that? How are we to do that? Today, concretely, this is the day of thanksgiving. Offering thanksgiving should be, obviously, what we want to do. Will that be done simply by feasting, by loading the tables with food and eating it until we are stuffed? Obviously, that in itself is not expressing any thanks. It's not an offering. Will we do it by listing a long list of things until we're exhausted, everyone saying something they're thankful for, and now we have this list? Well, again, that might be a start, but the unbeliever can do that. Will we pay God back for His goodness? Will we give a large offering in the collection today and in that way give thanks? And it is true that offerings can be a way of saying thanks to God. I'm not in any way minimizing that, and yet that's not That's not what God wants in the end. Remember what he said here? I will take no bullock out of thy house. Verse 9 of the Psalm 50. Every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle upon a thousand hills are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee. I don't need anything from you. But we thank him. By bringing our praises to him. Worshipping Him. As the Old Testament worshippers brought their sacrifices, offered them to God, worshipping, worshipping Him. There is no other God. There is no other giver. We offer this. We offer ourselves unto God. We point to His amazing goodness. We take His name upon His lips. We describe His love and His grace that we have experienced. We sing His praises and we call upon Him in a prayer of thanksgiving. That will arise as a sweet savor before God. That's the way the Bible describes the way we are to thank and praise Him. The end of the Psalm, Psalm 50, whoso offereth praise glorifieth me. We bring our praises. Or again in Psalm 26, verse 7. Psalm 26, 7 says, that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works. That's what we do. We tell of his wondrous works. Or again, in Psalm 107, verse 22, Psalm 107, verse 22, let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare His works with rejoicing. That's what we do. We talk about God. We declare His greatness, His goodness. That's bringing a sacrifice. of thanksgiving to God. And then, of course, it's living that, offering ourselves. God warns about that in this very psalm when he says to the wicked in verse 16, What has thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee? And he goes on to describe their ungodly life. You don't bring thanksgiving to me. Your life must be an offering of thanksgiving. The text adds to that, pay thy vows unto the Most High. Again, that brings us to Old Testament practices where they often would make a vow. Hannah, making a vow to God, Lord, if you give me a child, I will dedicate that child to you. Jephthah saying, Lord, if you give me the victory over the children of Ammon, I will offer to you the first thing that comes out of my house. Paul also made a vow, though he doesn't tell us what it was. The vow is not required. It's optional. But when a vow is made, it must be kept. It was some kind of an oath that must be kept. And the use of the vow was not that the believer imagined somehow he could make a bargain with God. That if he would do this, then God would have to do that. That's impossible. No one can place God under an obligation. And we must not either think, well, here's what normal people are required to do, but if I can go beyond that, then I'm going to have some reason to have God bless me. Again, we never go beyond. If we've only done everything that God requires of us, it's just that. We've not gone beyond it. But the proper use starts with gratitude. The motivation for a vow is gratitude. It begins with a confession, I'm not worthy of anything. If God does not do anything of what I desire, it's not as if God is not good, He is still good. And I will thank and praise Him. But with a proper vow, let's say Hannah, Hannah put herself in a position as if God had given her the child. And out of that thankful position of God blessing her, she said, I will gladly give this child to the Lord. So it was not a bargain, but she looks ahead and looks at the reality that only God can do this and says, in such a situation, I am so grateful. I will give this child unto the Lord. That's the standpoint of the Old Testament vow, looking ahead as an accomplished work of God and then vowing to give this thankful action or gift to God. At that particular time, obviously, it wasn't possible for her to give the child. She didn't have one. It wasn't possible for Jephthah to offer what came out of his house because he was on the battlefield. But he said, when this is finished, this is my vow. This is what I will do. Pay your vows of gratitude to the Most High. to one who sees and knows all things, to the God of the wonder who accomplishes great things. We all take vows. We took a vow when we made confession of faith to adhere to the doctrine, to submit to the elders. We took a vow when we baptized children to raise them in the fear of the Lord. We took a vow when we became an office bearer that we would be faithful in that office. We took vows as husbands and wives, in marriage, in thankfulness for what God has done in all those circumstances we are called to pay our vows. The way, of course, the greatest is simply what we sing so often in Psalm 116. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits? What shall I render for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows. unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people, worshiping God, worshiping him alone, paying our vows. This is God's command. That's the third point. This is God's command. It's a command that comes to all men. Yes, even unbelievers. They also receive life and health, food and homes from the hand of God. Many times they have more than God's people have even, but the unbeliever refuses. He is at heart unthankful. He will not humble himself. He will not point away from himself to God. To other men, perhaps, but never to God, not the God of the Scriptures, because He denies Him. Romans 1 makes it plain that He knows there's a God. He knows His power. He knows He must be feared and worshiped, but He will not worship Him. Yet the command continues, and He will be judged for refusing to thank and praise the who has provided everything for him. The command also comes to us and you think God's people shouldn't need a command. This should be just our life. It should be our constant consciousness and our desire offering ourselves. But we still need it, don't we? We still need it. We're prone to be unthankful. We're prone not to remember God, but to take the credit for the things that we have. And if not credit, then I deserve, I deserve. I worked hard enough. This is what I deserve. The Scriptures warn us especially about that when we have plenty, that we might well eat and drink and be full and say, who is the Lord? I, by the power of my hand, my might, I have obtained all these things. Some people don't work. Some people are on welfare. Some people want to be homeless. They don't feel like working. I worked. and then not give God the praise, all the praise. We might be prone to give thanks only for that which is good, to acknowledge God's great goodness when we have an abundance, good health, and a family togetherness, but failing to see that God is always good to Israel, even when he gives poor health, a lack of food, and great trouble. God is to be thanked and praised. This is a thankfulness that God works in us by faith in Jesus Christ. We are His. We've been redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ. We are righteous by faith in Him. That's what gives us access to Him. Those sacrifices not only covered the sins of the people, but those sacrifices gave them access to God. We have access to God. We can go to Him and thank Him in prayer and praises because of Jesus. He's our access. By the power of Jesus, we begin to live a thankful life. We've been given grateful hearts. Which gratitude can never be separated ultimately from the material things because while God supplies all the abundance to the ungodly, it's not out of love, it's not through Jesus Christ and His saving work. But for us, those same things are given to us that we may serve Him. That's the purpose for these things. And so, we can never truly give thanks to Him without looking at the cross and salvation in Jesus Christ. That's the purpose of our salvation, to give God the glory that we are transformed from a rebellious, unthankful, sinful people into a thankful people. And so, offer. unto God your thanksgiving, and pay your vows unto the Most High. Amen. Father in heaven, we give Thee thanks and praise for Thy abundant goodness, all of which have their source in Jesus and in Thy eternal love for us, and can be used rightly only by the power of His grace and Spirit. For that we pray that our thanksgiving may be solely grounded upon what Jesus has done. And thank Thee for Thy abundance with that in mind. So Lord, hear us and give us truly thankful hearts and mouths and lives for Jesus' sake. Amen. We sing 137, a versification of the Psalm 50. We will sing stanzas one, two, four, and six. One, two, four, and six of 137. ♪ Shall hold us free ♪ ♪ And hold the earth from sea to sea ♪ ♪ From the virgin's side our conscience pours ♪ ♪ In arms and will our silent fear ♪ In our replay, before him rose, Antarctica's alabaster. who sacrificed to be alone. Perhaps his righteousness declared for God himself. ♪ Well receive the crown of life ♪ to thee it's known whatever roads the field thy own. We're bound to run the gate of faith, holy name. In days when storm distress is nigh, the Elephant's eye will stand to thee, and praises Joy to sound Jehovah's praises, tell the glory of the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia. The blessing today I give is from the book of Hebrews, the last chapter. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will. Working in you, that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.