To you a very happy Thanksgiving. And I know there are some people here who have never been here before. Can we welcome them here this morning? Thank you for joining us. And as I've been preparing and praying for the word this morning, I've been asking God, God, what do you want to teach us today from your Word. God, what is something that you want to show your people? And I am so excited to share with you what the Lord has shown me this week, as I've been looking at his Word. As I've been studying it, I can't wait to tell you all the things that God has shown me. And so, would you please stand and turn to Psalm 106 for the public reading of Scripture? We want to give this text our full and undivided attention. We want to take some time this weekend to stop and to think about how good God has been to us. Let's read the first eight verses of Psalm 106. It says,
Praise the Lord! Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times! Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you save them, that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory with your inheritance. Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power.
You guys can go ahead and have a seat. And when I was a boy growing up, the thing when I thought about Thanksgiving, the thing that I was excited to do is I was excited to spend time with family, eat food, and watch football, and that was something I love to do every Thanksgiving. It was a tradition of ours. And as I've grown, and as God has saved me, well now he's taught me through psalms like this not just to be thankful for what I've received but be thankful to the God who has given those gifts to me. And that's how this psalm starts. It starts with this praising the Lord. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good for his steadfast love. It always goes. It never ends. It's going on forever. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord” for who he is.
He starts the psalm this way. He also ends this way. If you flip over to verse 47, he says, “Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’” Praise the Lord!” God has been so good to his people. God has been so good to us. And so, this Psalm, it starts with this praise, give thanks to the Lord, and it ends with worshiping God. Hey, call everybody, come and worship the Lord for what he has done.
And so, I want to teach you this new word, and you may have never heard it before. It's this word Thankstify, and if you never heard of this word before, that's okay. It's made up. All right? It's made up. And this word Thankstify, it's this idea of giving thanks, giving thanks to the Lord for he is good, but also to testify, to share what is true, to declare the glory of God. I don't know if you can picture kind of that courtroom scene where they're trying to figure out what happened, and they bring in a witness to testify, a witness to bear witness about what they saw or what they heard. They want to share what is true. Have you seen God do great things in your life? Have you heard the Word of God and you've seen him act? Do you know the goodness of the Lord? Well, the idea is that we would, then, Thankstify, that we would declare that we would testify, that we would speak of the things that we've seen, the things that we have heard, that we would give praise to God, for he is good.
Go with me to Psalm, chapter 66 this was a Psalm that we read on the Psalm of the Day last Friday, and in Psalm 66 it has this same idea here of giving thanks to the Lord and really worshiping him for what he has done, but not just what he has done, but also for who he is. And it says in Psalm, chapter 66 verse 1, “shout for joy to God all the earth. Sing the glory of his name. Give to him glorious praise.” You see, I want to sing. I want to worship God for his Glorious Name. That's all that God is, all of his attributes, all the things about God that I can recall to mind. Well, I want to give thanks to him. I want to shout for joy. I want to worship him because of his great name. Verse 3 says “Say to God,” Hey, what are the things that I should say to God? What are the things that I should declare in worship? “Say to God, how awesome are your deeds? So Great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you? All the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name.”
You see, he has this idea here that not only am I going to worship God and give thanks to him because of who he is, but also because of his awesome deeds. Have you seen God do awesome things in your life? Have you seen God answer prayers in your life? Have you seen God do awesome things in other people's lives? Have you seen God do awesome things all over the world? What are the awesome deeds that God has done that I want to give him thanks for this morning. And look at what it says in verse 16. He says, “Come and here.” Gather around all of you who fear God. Hey, let the saints, the people of God, everyone who fears him, gather around “and I will tell you what he has done for my soul.” What has God done for your soul? Hey, gather around, everybody. Hey, gather around, kids. Come around the Thanksgiving table. And I want to share what the Lord has done for my soul. Oh, he's been so good to us.
So, I want you to put it down like this for point number one: We want to “Thankstify of his mighty deeds.” We want to Thankstify; we want to lift up Thanksgiving. We want to declare the truth about who God is and what he has done. And we want to give him thanks for all that he is, for all the things that he's done for my soul. Now, you see, the nation of Israel, they saw God do many mighty deeds. They saw God do amazing works in the land of Egypt when they were slaves, and God sent the plagues into Egypt. And God rescued them in this mighty way, where he led them with as a pillar of fire at night, where he led them as a cloud during the day, and he took them to the Red Sea. And God, he parted the Red Sea, and his people walked across the dry ground. See, Israel saw God do amazing things. They were able to worship and to testify of the awesome things that God had done, which makes me think, why did they always so quickly seem to just run after other gods?
See, I have a question for you this morning. It's a question that I've been asking people all week long here at the church. What was the first step to Israel's downfall? How did they go from a people that were worshiping God, that were declaring his mighty deeds, and then they would just so quickly go after other gods. What changed in them? What was the first step toward that? And I've been asking people that this week, and the three answers that I got, mostly was, well, the first one was idolatry. The thing that led them away from giving thanks to the Lord was that they would go after other gods. The other one was the well, they were complaining. Well, how can I really give thanks to the Lord if I'm spending time complaining? And then the third one was, well, they didn't have faith in God. They didn't believe his promises. Now, all those things are true, but what led them to that?
And the reason why I want to bring that question to you this morning is because I believe the same temptation, the same answer to that question that led them from worshiping God to then going after other idols, and complaining, and having doubt, is the same temptation that you and I will face every single day of our lives. See what happened to these people. Go back with me to Psalm 106 and maybe you saw it as we read it. And if you kept reading this whole Psalm, it actually comes up multiple times in our passage, what happened to the people who saw these miraculous things, who saw the mighty deeds of Yahweh. Well, how did they then wander off? And it says in verse 6, “Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.” Okay. Well, what happened? What was the cause of that? Verse 7 says, “Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.” They forgot. They didn't remember God's awesome deeds. No, they forgot what he did. They forgot the abundance of his steadfast love, and that caused them to rebel by the Sea, you see.
So, then it goes on to talk about how God delivered them as their backs were against the Sea, and he opened the Red Sea. And then, in verse 11, he says, “and the waters covered their adversaries. Not one of them was left. Then they believed his words, and they sang praise. They worshiped him. Look what God has done. He crushed our adversaries. He saved us. We are giving thanks to the Lord. Let's praise Him.” But verse 13 says, “they soon forgot.” They forgot his works. You see, they responded correctly. They saw God do something awesome. They saw him do an amazing thing, and they worshiped. But then they soon forgot. And now God leads them into the wilderness, and God feeds them in this miraculous way, by raining down bread from heaven, and he gives them water from a rock. But then it says in verse 19 that They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.” They forgot God.
See, as I've been looking at this idea of forgetting, it's something that I've seen before, but God showed it to me this week like I've never seen it before, like there are so many passages that we can turn to today that talk about forgetting or their failure to remember. It's mind blowing. Like I had to cut twenty minutes of verses out of my sermon yesterday, because there's just so much content that we could talk about today, so many cross references that we can go to that talk about forgetting and not remembering who God is and how it leads to all kinds of sin. We just sang about this.
But flip over maybe one page to Psalm 103 we just sang this song here all together, the song that we loved it. I have ten thousand reasons to bless the Lord. Well, it comes from Psalm 103, and it says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” Hey, soul, worship God and all that is within me. “Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul,” and forget not all of his benefits. Hey, soul, worship God, but don't forget, don't forget all the good things that the Lord has done.
Go with me to Psalm, chapter 78, and this has become one of my favorite Psalms, because in this Psalm, it talks a lot about passing it on to the next generation. And I love getting over in the kids’ building. I love talking to the next generation, and I love opening up the Bible with them and just blowing their little minds like it's, I mean, have you ever talked to a kid who's like, just starting to really get it, and you're like, have you ever been to the Huntington Beach before? Have you been to the pier? Can you imagine God just parting the sea and you could walk across and they're like, no. I'm like, yeah, God can do that. It's really fun. You should come try it sometime. It's a great time in the kids’ ministry. And I love this psalm because it talks about what we've seen and what we've heard. Well, we're going to testify and we're going to tell it to our children. And it says in verse 1, “Give ear. O my people, to my teaching. Incline your ear to my words, the words of my mouth.” Hey, listen to what I have to say. I have something to tell you. Listen. Verse 2, “I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings from of old things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of Yahweh and his might and the wonders that he has done. He has established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise tell it to their children, so that” what is the purpose of passing it on? That “they might set their hope in God.” We want our children to believe. We want people to know Yahweh, that we want them to set their hope in God and not forget the works of God.
So, you want people to believe. We want people to know God, and we speak of the mighty deeds that he has done, but we don't want them to forget. And that was the problem with the fathers. If you look at verse 10, they did forget. It says, “They did not keep God's covenant, but refused to walk according to his law. They forgot his works and the wonders that he had shown them. In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan. He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a fiery light.” See, they forgot what God had done, and then look at what it says in verse 40. This is the result of them forgetting. It says, “How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe.” You see, I wonder, how many sins can we trace back in our lives to forgetting? How many times has God shown you something? How many God times has God delivered you out of something only for you to forget? And when we forget what God has done, it leads into all kinds of destruction. It leads into all kinds of sin.
See, what we want to do this morning is we want to take time. We want to remember what God has done. Because if we do not remember, if we forget what God has done, we will so easily go off into other sins. Go with me to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 4. And as Deuteronomy is really the sermon of Moses, and he's talking to the people about loving the Lord their God with all of their heart, and the call to love Yahweh, that's, I mean, really the theme of this book. And when I was studying this idea of forgetting and remembering, is actually surprising to me how little I could find on the subject. And I did find an article that talked from Deuteronomy, and it was about loving God with all their heart. And he says just so quickly, just a couple of sentences in the middle of this article, he says, “The first step to hating God is forgetting, you see, because I'm called to love God with all my heart, and when I really love the Lord with all my heart, what's going to lead me to want to worship him and to obey him. And the call here for the people of Israel was to do what God said.” But if you forget, then you're not going to do what God said. Look at what it says here in verse 9 of Deuteronomy, chapter 4, he says, “Only take care.” Okay, this word “take care,” It means “to guard.” Hey, you need to guard yourself. You need to take care and keep your soul diligently. Keep your soul. It means might or force. He's saying, hey, you need to guard your soul. You need to guard yourself with might. Guard yourself with strength. You need to really consider how you're thinking about this. You need to guard yourself, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And look, here it is again. Here's our theme of the morning, the couple of verses we've already seen, make them known to your children and your children's children. See, when I love the Lord with all my heart, well, I'm going to Thankstify. I'm going to tell of his mighty deeds. I'm going to pass it on to my kids, or I'm going to speak it to my coworkers. I'm going to be telling of the great things that God has done. But if I don't guard, see. If I don't keep my soul diligently, I will forget. The only thing that you need to do to forget God is do nothing. Just don't guard your soul. Just wake up tomorrow and go to work.
See, we forget God when we do nothing. It's so easy. And I've seen this happen time and time again at the church. I'll have a brother come to me and say, hey, I need a job. My family, we're dependent upon a job. I’ve got to work. I’ve got to provide. It's been really tough, and if I don't get a job, well, I might have to move out of state, and I don't want to, I want to be here. Will you pray with me? Will you ask God to help me find a job? Yes, let's pray. We're reminded of Matthew 6, when I “seek first the kingdom of God.” Well, he's going to give me all the things that I need. So, we pray and we ask God, God, will you please provide a job? And then guess what God does? He provides, and he gives him a new job. And now I have to, you know, wake up at a different time than I've been used to, and I’ve got to maybe wake up a little early and run off to work. And the first thing to go after I've received what I asked for from God, after I've received this blessing from God, the first thing to go is spending time with God in the morning, because I'm going to work, because God gave me a job. The first thing to go, I'm going to stop spending time with the Lord. I'm going to stop abiding in Christ.
See, it's so easy just to forget when God gives you something that you've been asking for. When God blesses you with children or with a family, is the first thing to go fellowshipping with his people, is the first thing to go sitting under his teaching. You see, so quickly we take the things that God has given to us, we take the blessings that God has given, and we so quickly say thank you, and we forget. And now it becomes more about the gift, rather than the giver who gave it to us. Now the Israelites, it wasn't like they just like, had a bad memory. It wasn't like they just like, misplaced their keys, or, you know, when you put something at the front door because you want to make sure you grab it on the way out, and then you're halfway down the road and you forgot. Oh, there, it's at the home. You say they didn't just like forget. It wasn't just like they had this bad memory. This word here, right here in verse 9, this word here for “to forget,” it means “to ignore or to cease from caring.” They didn't care. They ignored it. They saw the amazing things that God had done, but they ignored it. They forgot it. They didn't care.
See, this week, we had an opportunity as a church. We all gathered together because Pastor Bobby was going to Tokyo, and then he was going to go to India. And if you have been watching Scripture today, or if you were here last week, Pastor Bobby said that, hey, they've rejected my visa, that I can't go to India. And this is something that we've been praying about as pastors. We said, hey, this would be the best weekend for you to go and to stir them up. This will be a great thing for you to go. So, we've been planning and we've been preparing, and Pastor Bobby was excited about going, but when they found out that he was a pastor, they rejected his visa. And so, Pastor Bobby, he called on us. He called on the whole church to come and pray. And hundreds of us lifted up one voice, and we prayed to the Lord. And we said, Lord, it would be so good for him to go. God would be so good for him to go and to stir up those elders. It'd be so good for him to go and preach and to care for your people. Oh, God, will you please grant him this visa? Hey, God, we know that kings are like water in your hands, and if you want him to go, nothing will stop him from going. And we prayed and we assembled, and we asked God to do something that we could not do. And God heard our prayers. And people were asking me on Tuesday night, when I was out here, as you were walking into fellowship group, people kept coming up and saying, hey, did he get the visa yet? Did he get it? And I was like, well, watch Scripture the Day tomorrow and find out, and then the next day, on Scripture the Day, he, like, didn't tell us, and it's like a cliffhanger. And I just felt like apologizing to everybody who asked me the night before. See, God, he heard our prayers, he answered the cry of his people. And on Scripture the Day, if you go on the website and you look at that video, it's one hundred people saying, Praise the Lord. Oh, give thanks to his name. Oh, thank you God for hearing our prayers. And the question is, the next time that our backs are against the wall, the next time we need God to do something, are we going to forget what he did? Are we going to forget that God answers prayer? Are we going to remember how God heard the cry of his people as we were lifting up a prayer as one and God heard our prayers? See, so often we pray for God to give us something, we pray for God to deliver us, and God answers that prayer. And so often, the next time it comes around, I so quickly forget, and I begin to be full of anxiety and worry and doubt when God just delivered us. We need to remember the things that God has done, and God has actually set up over time and time again.
For the nation of Israel, he commanded them to do different things to help them remember there were things that they had to do, the things that he commanded them, because he knew that they would be quick to forget. So, they had these feasts. And you could read about these feasts in Deuteronomy 16, it talks about three different feasts that they would celebrate once a year, three times a year, they would get away, and they would celebrate these feasts, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths. And these feasts that they took part in, the purpose of these feasts, if you go read those passages, it says, hey, when your son comes and asks you, why don't we eat the bread with leaven, you need to remind them of how quickly God brought you out of Egypt, and we didn't have time for the leaven, so we had to go quickly. You see, when your children come and ask, you're supposed to tell them. And we set aside specific times throughout the year where they would stop, and they would remember what God had done. They would remember his mighty works. They would remember his steadfast love. In the Book of Joshua, chapter 4, after God parts the river and they're able to walk across on dry ground, he takes the twelve tribes, and he tells them each to grab one stone and they build a memorial stone. They build a place where they stack them all up. And when your son comes and asks you, what's up with the stones, you can tell them how God parted the sea and how the people of Israel walked across on dry ground.
You see, God had things that they were supposed to remember, times that they were supposed to set aside, to remember his favor, to remember his goodness. But time and time again they forgot. Go with me a few pages over to the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, chapter 8. Deuteronomy, chapter 8, in verse 11, it has the same word, to guard or to take care. He makes sure you guard yourself, guard your soul. It says in verse 11 of Deuteronomy chapter 8, “take care, lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and when your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied,” hey, when God gives you all these good gifts, when he multiplies your herds and your houses and your gold and your silver, “then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do good to you in the end, beware lest you say in your heart, my power and my might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, and he will confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.” The result of forgetting God is that you will perish. And he says you will perish like all the other nations perish.
You see, this isn't only reserved for the people of Israel. This is for every single nation. Look at what it says in verse 20, “Like the nations that the Lord made to perish before you so shall so shall you perish.” You see, just like the other nations have perished, you're going to perish, too, if you forget God. You see the people of God, they did not wake up one day and just have amnesia. They didn't wake up one day and just like, get hit in the head and just forget, oh, how are we here? Where'd the bread come from? You see, they had spiritual amnesia. This was something that was going on in their heart. They weren't guarding their soul. I mean, where in your life do you live like this? You see, it's not that they forgot. It's not that they didn't see. It's not that they didn't know things about God. They knew they had the history their fathers told them they knew the glorious deeds of Yahweh. They heard of all the things that he had done, but they lived like it didn't happen. They lived like it did not matter.
How many of us live like that. How many of us live like his steadfast love isn't real? How many of us live like his mighty deeds are irrelevant, like they don't mean anything. In my life, you see, when I'm talking to somebody and we're sitting there and they're having a difficult time, and they're sharing, and they're pouring their heart out, and it's like they know they know things about God. They're able to tell me how he saved them. They're able to tell me things that he's taught them. They're able to tell me how he answered prayer. Oh, I know things about God, yeah, but you live like it doesn't matter. You live like you don't care. You live like it doesn't mean anything. No, you see, when God does these amazing works, all the things that God is, we need to remember. We need to guard ourselves. We need to guard our souls.
So, put it down like this for point number two: “Guard yourself against spiritual amnesia.” Guard yourself against spiritual amnesia. I mean, how many sins can we trace back to forgetting. You see, when I forget God's track record of faithfulness, I am prone to fear, anxiety, and control. When I forget God's past provisions, I am tempted to envy and compare and covet. When I forget my need for grace, I have nothing, no grace to pass on to other people. You see, when I complain, it's because I've forgotten his benefits.
There's this couple in our fellowship group who, for a long time have been trying to have children, and they've been unable to have kids, and you can tell it weighs heavy on their soul. And they'll come to group, and there'll be times when we break up men and women, and the man will just say, hey, can you guys pray for me, because I'm having a hard time. I don't want to miss what God is teaching me. Will you pray for me? We guys pray that I don't forget the goodness of God in my life. In my fellowship group, we have a young fellowship group with a lot of people who have gotten married, who are starting their family. So, it seems like every other month, someone is like, I'm pregnant. Someone in our fellowship group just had their baby last night. There are all these women who are pregnant, and every time that someone comes and announces that that God has given them this precious gift of life, the group rejoices and we worship and we thank God for his great gift. And every time that happens, I look over at that other couple because I know the temptation is going to be to be jealous or to be envious or to covet. And every single time that announcement is made, the first person that stands up in tears and runs to the other woman and hugs her, is the woman who can't have children. See, she's not focused on what she does not have. She's worshiping God for the gift that he gave to somebody else. And she worships. And then one day, months later, they come to our fellowship group, and the husband stands up and he says, “My wife is pregnant,” and now the whole room stands up and runs to that woman, and in tears, we worship and we thank God for the gift. And that sweet little girl now runs around at our church. For this past year, she's been running around in that kids’ ministry. Well, it hasn't been a whole year. I guess she's been only running around for like two months. She just kind of took a while to figure it out. And every time I see that little girl, oh, I'm reminded of God's faithfulness. I'm reminded of his goodness, of his steadfast love, of how he hears prayers. And then just recently, a few months ago, that same couple comes to our group and says, we're going to have a boy, God has blessed us with a son. And then they go into just a normal routine, scheduled appointment, and they find out that that boy's heart is not beating anymore. What do you say to them? What do I say when I go over to their house and they're just in tears and they're broken? See, it's amazing when I go over to that house, they're not setting their mind on what they lost, but they're remembering the faithfulness of God in the past, and they are worshiping. They know that the Lord gives and the Lord takes, blessed be his name. And I walk out of that house encouraged. I walk out of that house thinking their remembrance is inspiring to me, that they would be able to go through such pain and remember who God is.
You see, if we don't remember, if we forget, then when the trials of life come, they will crush you. We need to remember all the good things that God has done. And so, this is a call this morning to think about and to set our minds on who God is. So go with me to Psalm, chapter 77, because I don't want to just talk about how they forgot. I want to help us to think through how do we remember? How do we remember the Lord, so we don't drift and fall into these sins, so we don't have anxiety, so we're able to worship when times are difficult? Well, in Psalm 77 it's going to help us think through that. And it says in verse 3. And maybe some of you guys can really relate to this, because maybe Thanksgiving and Christmas actually is very difficult time for you. Maybe Thanksgiving is a time where you are having a hard time rejoicing in all circumstances, because you don't have that loved one with you this Thanksgiving. And I know that's happening here at our church. There are people that Thanksgiving is actually a very challenging season for their life. And maybe you can relate to what it says in Psalm 77, verse 3, when he says, “When I remember God, I moan, when I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old, the years long ago, I said, ‘Let me remember my song in the night. Let me meditate in my heart.’ Then my spirit made a diligent search.” So, my spirit is searching, and this is what my spirit found. Verse 7, “Will the Lord spurn me forever and never again be favorable? Has His steadfast love forever ceased? Are His promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he and his anger shut up his compassion?” To me there are times when you're going through a real trial and the cry of your heart is, God, are you good? God, have you forgotten me? I'm praying to you, Lord, it seems like you're not hearing me. But look at what changes in verse 10. He says, “Then I said this is what I will say. I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds, your way. O, God is holy. What God is great like our God?”
You see, the circumstance did not change, but their minds changed. I'm appealing to this. I'm going to remember the Lord. I'm going to ponder the work. I'm going to meditate on your mighty deeds. You see, this idea of meditation in the Scripture, it's like you see a target, and you're just going to shoot at that target over and over and over again. You're going to keep on thinking about the truth of God. You're going to keep on setting your mind on God until it goes from your head to your heart, until it goes from things that you know about God to affecting now the way you live, to affecting now your attitude, to affecting the way that you speak to people, the way that you are responding to this trial. You see, I can know so many things about God, but if I don't meditate, if I don't really chew and ponder on the Word of God, well then I'm going to forget. And, you see, when I set my mind on the things above where Christ is, when I set my mind on who he is, and his marvelous, his miraculous, his powerful deeds, well, then I remember. It's not just calling to mind things that I know. It's setting my mind on God. It's setting my mind on God, and it's leaving it there until it changes me, leaving it there, until God saves me, until God rescues me from this trouble, until God shows me.
You see, a good verse for meditation is Philippians 4:8, and you don't have to turn there, but you might know the verse where it says, hey, “Whatever is true or honorable or just or pure,” hey, whatever is commendable. He says, in that passage, Paul, he says, “think about these things.” What is true about God? Okay, I'm going to set my mind on those things. See, I need to consider and remember the things of God. And the way that I do that is I have to be active. Thinking is a very active thing. And the problem in our culture is that we don't really like to think that much. It's not because we're not smart. It's because we just look at the kind of fifteen-second reels, and those are just when we come home from work after a long day. We would rather empty our minds than really take time to ponder and to think. That takes work, that's hard. I have to wrestle. I don't want to do that. I just want to sit down and empty my mind. I used to think that Christians weren't very good at meditation, and I need to correct that. I think Christians aren't very good at biblical meditation because every one of us sets our mind on something. Every single one of us is pondering something. Maybe you're tempted to ponder what your spouse said to you, and that fills you with anger because of what they said. And I'm just pondering that in my head, and I'm replaying it in my mind, and that's rising up within me, this anger that I have towards them. See, maybe I'm meditating on the way somebody disrespected me, or maybe I'm meditating on how tough my job is, or maybe I'm pondering how my children won't listen to me. See, it's amazing how often the thing that we pray for the most, how often we pray for things like a spouse or children, or a job is oftentimes the thing that we complain about the most.
So, I'm pondering all the things going wrong when I should be setting my mind on the Lord. And when you do that, when you set your mind on God, when you remember who he is, it's going to change the way you think. It's not going to change your circumstance, but it's going to change the way you go through it. Because even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will not fear because he is with you, it's his presence that gets you through it. See, we need to remember. Go with me to the book of Ephesians, because in Ephesians, it talks about the same idea of us remembering in the nation of Israel, they were remembering how God delivered them out of the land of Egypt, and they would think about the great deeds and the awesome deeds that God has done. But many of us are not from the nation of Israel. Many of us have not heard, or we have not, we don't know. People who have fathers have passed it down from generation to generation. Know what are we supposed to remember as God's people here today? Well, it says in Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 11, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Can we meditate on the blood of Jesus? Can we think? Can we ponder on how good it is that God has brought you near, that you were once separated, that you were once far off.
You see, I wonder how many temptations would be easily dispelled. I wonder how many temptations we can get through if I would just ponder and set my mind on how God has saved me, and God has now given me power to say no to any temptation in Christ. I wonder how quickly we would just run to a temptation and give in to sin, when I need to remember, I need to set my mind on the fact that God has brought me nearby his blood, that he saved your soul. Do you know what it's like to be rescued from the pit of darkness? Do you know what it's like to have God save you from all of your sin, to wash it clean that he would remember your sin no more. Praise the Lord. Give him thanks. Walk in that light. Look what it says in verse chapter 1, verse 3, in these first fourteen verses in this chapter, I mean in our English translation, it's got periods and all these things. But when Paul wrote this, he didn't stop this whole first fourteen verses is just him going off. He thanks to find he is full of worship, and he's declaring who God is. And he starts in verse 3 with worship, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”
Do you know how rich you are as a Christian? Do you know that you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places? Have you thought about that? Have you pondered that you can spend this whole week thinking about that truth, and you will not be able to find the end of it, that he has given you all the riches of his glorious inheritance? They are yours. They're for you. If you ponder that and you chew on that, oh, how is that going to not refresh your soul? Look at what it says in verse 4, “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, that we would be set apart from sin and blameless before him.” Hey, these people that are staying before God, that are far off, we can now go to God and be blameless before him. We don't deserve that. What an amazing truth. And it says in verse 5, “He predestined us for adoption as sons. He's adopted us into his family through Christ Jesus, according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace.” See, the purpose of him doing this is for the praise of his grace.
Maybe this week we can take some time to meditate on the grace of God. Maybe this week we can meditate on how we, who are once far off, now have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and you can stand before God holy and blameless. Not a single person in this room can say that on their own accord. It's only because of what Jesus has done. Can we thank him for that. Can we remember him for that? There's so much more truth in this. In this letter, look what it says in verse 11. It says, “In him, we've obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we, who are the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the good news, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of your inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. And maybe this week, you can spend some time considering the salvation that you cannot lose, that when Jesus saved your soul, he gave you his helper, he put inside of you his Holy Spirit, and that is the guarantee that you will be with him in the end. There's so much richness in this letter alone. Look at what it says in chapter 2, verse 1. It says, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at the work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and our sins, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved, and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, amen.” Do you know how rich you are? Do you know the forgiveness that you've received in Christ? It's amazing, and you need to ponder it, and you need to chew on it, and you need to chew on that until the nutrition of what God is saying gets into your heart and you live it out. You see, the one way we're going to not forget is we are going to meditate.
And this week we are. We're taking a break from reading the Psalms. We're not going to be reading the Psalms this week. We're taking a break. We'll come back next week and read the Psalms. And so, this week, I'm inviting everybody, will you please come and read Ephesians with us? If you flip your handout over on the back, you can see the schedule, and each day, we're going to read a chapter of Ephesians, and we are just going to sit and meditate in this book, and we're going to ponder and chew on the words the glorious inheritance that we have in Christ. And, yes, we're also going to read on Thanksgiving. And yes, we're going to read two chapters on Friday. You see, when you get this book into your heart, you will not forget God, and you will be so full of worship because of what he has done for you.
Go with me to the book of 1 Peter. Why has God saved us? Why has God done this? Well, in 1 Peter, it gives us this glorious and beautiful truth that I want us to leave here today thinking about. It says in 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 9. Here's some more things that you are. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” See, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you were had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Do you remember what it was like when you had no mercy? Do you remember what it was like when you lived in darkness? You see, the worst possible scenario for every single person in this room is that we would have no mercy. No Mercy equals outer darkness. No Mercy equals a separation from God for all of eternity. But God is merciful, and he's merciful so that he's given us mercy, he's not giving us what we deserve. Why? So that you may proclaim the excellencies. Is his love marvelous to you? Are his marvelous deeds wonderful to you? Are there things right now that you can think about in your mind and all you want to do is offer worship to God, because he's so good? Proclaim it, speak it, share it to every single person at Thanksgiving dinner this week. Gather the children, gather the people that you're going to be hanging out with, people that may not know God, and proclaim his excellencies. Tell them the marvelous deeds that God has done in you. Tell them the things that you know about God and give him thanks, proclaim his name, proclaim the things that he has done, proclaim all that he is.
Put it down like for point number three: You need to “Proclaim his name.” We're Proclaimers. It makes no sense to receive this wonderful gift and to chew on it and to meditate on it and to have it seep into my soul and not say anything about it. The theme that we saw over and over in our time with Israel was when your children ask you, maybe you have forgotten because you don't say anything. Maybe you're not passing it on, maybe you're not proclaiming his name. You need to say it, proclaim it, thanks, defy of the goodness of God. And you see, God did not tell us to keep the feasts. God did not tell us to put up stones in the courtyard and us to remember things. See, what did God tell us to do? How are we supposed to remember? See God told us to remember the death of Jesus, how he shed his blood and how he gave up his body on the tree. We're supposed to remember by taking communion.
So, I want to end our time together thinking about communion. And it says this in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 23 this is something that God's people are commanded to do. It says, “For I have received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, also he took the cup after supper, saying, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat of this bread and drink of the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So, this is something that every single believer is commanded to do, that we are commanded to remember Jesus. Remember how he spilled his blood on the cross. Remember how his body was broken. And so, in just a minute, the band is going to come out, and they're going to play a song, and as that song plays, well, it's a time for us to just sit and to remember. It's a time for you to sit and be still and to ponder and to think and to chew on the good of God in your life. And then afterwards, I'll come out and we'll take communion all together. And I just want anybody in here who is not a Christian, anybody in here who knows that you have not put your faith in Jesus, anybody in this room who knows that yeah, I don't remember God. I don't know God. Well, we would ask that you just let the communion pass, that you wouldn't partake in the communion, because this is what it says in verse 27. There's actually a warning here. It says, “Whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of Jesus.” So, this is something for his people to do as a time of remembering. So, the band's going to come out, and then we'll take it all together in just a minute. But let me pray for us as before that happens.
God, we just want to thank you, God. We want to stop, and we want to give thanks to you, Father, because you are so good. God, we give you thanks for your mighty deeds. God help us to remember. Help us to remember who we were before you saved us. God, help us to remember that we were once far off, but that we have been brought in here by the blood of Jesus. God, I pray that even this week, guys, maybe some of us have more time and we have a few days off work or from school. God, I pray that we would not forget God, that we would spend time with you and chew on your Word. God, if some of us are having a difficult time, if some of us are so easily becoming anxious or worried, if Thanksgiving has become about the tradition rather than the giver, O Father, please help us to remember God. Help us to set our minds on the things above God. Help us to set our minds on the things that will give us life. But I pray that we would meditate on your Word, and that as we read Ephesians, we would remember the blood that was shed for us, that we remember how we were once in darkness, but Jesus came on Christmas, on a seek and save mission. He came to die for sin. And God, we want to lift up shouts of praise because you have been so good. God, please, in this moment, right now, cause us to remember the blood of Jesus. Amen.