Word of Salvation – Vol.12 No.25 – June 1966
True Gratitude
Sermon by Rev. J. Van der Meulen on 1Chron.29:14b
Scripture Reading: 1Chron.29:10-19
Psalter Hymnal: No. 323; 417; 123:1,4,5; 333; 468
Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,
Have you ever stopped to think how easy it is to say that you are thankful? We say: thank you very much; we write: with many thanks; we say: thank you for the cup of tea and a minute later for the biscuit that goes with it.
Saying thank you’ goes very easy. It is mostly just a politeness which we utter without thinking. You can say it with a heart of stone.
Saying thank you’ is easy. But one of the most difficult things is to be really thankful. People can be fooled. They do not look into your heart. But when we stand before God to thank. Him, we cannot deceive Him. He knows every corner of our hearts and every secret thought. When we are thanking God, then God knows whether we mean it or not. He searches our hearts, our thoughts, our most hidden secrets and God sees whether the heart is really grateful to Him or whether we are just saying some empty words.
Let us then come to His Word and let the Bible first teach us what true gratitude is. Our text says: How we must be thankful to God.
- The gift of God
- The calling of the church
- The deed of gratitude.
1. The gift of God.
All things come from Thee, David says here. It is a great moment in David’s life. The king is old and grey, weary after many battles, exhausted after a forty years’ reign. One thing David had still desired to do. There was one thing lacking. David himself was living in a beautiful palace, while the dwelling place of God was the tabernacle, a tent. David would have loved to build a temple for the Lord. But God had said: No David, you have fought too many battles, you are a man of war and you have shed blood. You must leave it to your son Solomon to build the temple.
It was a disappointment for the old king. But he resigned to it. And he is not even sour about it. He can make preparations. All sorts of building materials will be needed. It was going to be a grand and magnificent house, a temple for the God of Israel. And now the princes, the rulers, the chiefs have all come together. They have come from all over the country and they took their gifts with them. Not a few cents. Oh no, heaps of gold, silver, brass, iron, precious stones and gems. They were not even forced to give it. It was not a taxation. They gave it freely.
David looks over it and sees that apart from what he had contributed himself, the people brought five thousand talents of gold and ten thousand talents of silver. How much it is in our days is hard to say. Anyway, it is a tremendous amount.
Thousands of pounds in weight, millions of dollars in money value are brought to David. Israel showed that it was their dearest wish to build a temple for the Lord.
The king is stunned. This is great, this is more than he could have hoped for. David is delighted and fascinated. He is surrounded by piles and heaps of gold and silver and gems. All the wealth and the riches and splendour of the earth are brought together for the Lord.
His thoughts go back many, many years ago. Forty, fifty years ago he was just a simple shepherd, who watched the flocks and sang with the harp. David thinks of the years he fled from Saul. He had been hunted like an animal. He had lived in caves. Like the poorest in the land he had roamed the wilderness and wandered in the mountains.
And now his kingdom is strong and secure, the enemies are frightened to death, the people are happy and content.
This is great, that the people of God are bringing all their gifts freely. This silver and gold is to David a miracle of God. What strikes David most is that the people give willingly. They want to give, their hearts command them to give. There is no holding back, no stingy giving. O no, here speak hearts that overflow with gratitude. The purest gold, the finest silver, the most precious stones are not good enough for the temple of God. They do not want to build a carnival city, not a Lunapark; no, they want to build a city for God, a place of worship, a dwelling place for the Most High. David sees his kingdom, strong and safe.
He sees his people, dedicated to God’s service, He sees their gifts and then, then David exclaims:
“Blessed be Thou, O Lord, the Lord of Israel, our Father for ever and ever. Thine O Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and victory and majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as Head above all.”
So David shouts for joy. Now therefore, our God, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious Name.
David is convinced of one thing: All the riches around him, the greatness of the nation, the wealth of the land, it is all from God. God has given, God has blessed, God poured out His gifts abundantly and freely. All things come from Thee, O Lord. Israel had not deserved these riches, nor earned them. All they had and all they were belongs to their God.
We live in a land of plenty. Millions live in poverty. We have houses, well-furnished and comfortable. Millions starve. We get more than we need. Many are prisoners in their own country, while we enjoy freedom and liberty. Many die for lack of medical care, while we can go to the doctor with a headache. Our fields have yielded their fruit, our cupboards are filled, we all have a job, no one is unemployed.
And do we get it because we are so good? Ask yourselves: have you deserved your comfortable home, your food, your health, your job? Can we give rain and sunshine? Can we keep ourselves healthy? Can we give ourselves plenty of work? Have we given our country freedom? Is this our doing? Have we deserved all these riches?
One more thing we need, and that is a humble, grateful heart. ‘Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee’, the hymn says. But we can only thank God, when we see Him as the Lord, the Master, Who gave us all these things.
Let us, above all, be very humble: It is the heavenly Father and He alone who gives us health and wealth. He alone gives abundance and riches. Freedom and liberty, harvest and income, we receive it all from a God who is gracious and merciful.
Look around you and say it with David: All that I have I owe to Thee. Let us pray much to see not just the riches, but above all the great Giver Himself. Then we learn to be thankful. For that is what God calls us to.
- He wants our gratitude.
If we can say: All things come of Thee, then there must follow: and we give Thee of Thy own. We give of that which we first received. The Lord who gave us everything, demands a grateful heart.
Out of God are all things – so we pray: give us our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses. But also to God are all things: so we end our prayer by saying, For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory. We receive from God, but we also give to God. Paul says to the Romans: Of him and through him are all things. But then he adds: and unto him are all things. To him be the glory forever.
Thankfulness, the giving to God, the answer of gratitude, will come, if we first see the Giver. Then the gratitude to the Giver will follow. If we see the Lord of this earth, the Lord who gives abundance, we will be grateful; we will give to this Lord.
God does not need it. All the gold of the earth is his and the cattle upon a thousand hills. We are like the boy, who bought a present for his father’s birthday from his pocket money. The father had really paid for it himself. Yet the Father said: This is the nicest present I got today. We stand over against God as little boys and girls. And yet that great God, who gave us our pocket money and our cars and all the rest of it, that God comes very near to us and says: I am delighted, I am so pleased that I received something very beautiful from you.
God gets a lot of praise in heaven. The angels always sing. Also the stars and the birds and the flowers speak of His love and glory and sing to His honour. But God wants to hear that praise from us, his children, most of all.
He made us free, He bought us, so that we live again in His home. And from those children God wants to hear: Thank you very much. That is what we shall do, we shall go to the Lord and say: We thank Thee, Lord, for our food, for jobs, for health, for all the riches of this earth. Most of all we thank Thee for that greatest gift, for the treasure that we have in heaven.
Have you ever thought about it, that God will be pleased with our thankful hearts, that He loves you to praise Him when you see His greatness in the fields? Just that song from a grateful heart is a joy and thrill to the heavenly Father. Usually we are not very good in singing. Our hearts do not praise God easily. In Hebrews we read: Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise. Through Him then…. through Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus must teach us to praise. A hymn of praise that comes from the bottom of the heart can only be sung when Jesus lives in that heart.
It is strange how we rely on God. First we receive everything from God, then the Lord Jesus must make us praise God. There is not much left of us. Yet God wants our psalms, our hymns. We should ask God to make us see that what we have are His gifts, we should pray for Him to make us thankful. It is only the Holy Spirit who can make us ready for a life of praise. We can sing only when the Spirit of Jesus Christ makes us sing. We would never have thought of it ourselves.
And yet, even though the song in our hearts comes from God, God is mighty pleased to hear it. Our jobs and homes, income and harvest, are all from God, our gratitude is worked by the Holy Spirit, and yet God is pleased to hear us singing. He delights in the praise of His children. Our psalms are a great joy to Him. A psalm from the heart is just the thing God wants.
- The deed of gratitude.
The church must gratefully sing, as David does here. But if that Church really gives thanks to God, really sings, then our hands must sing too. Israel gave for the temple. So we must work for the house of God, for mission, for a ‘Freedom From Hunger’ campaign, for our own local church budget.
And if there is a song of praise to the great Giver, our gifts will be a joy instead of a burden. I am not pleading here for a collection. But if you give, do it from the heart, out of love to the great Giver Himself. You can tip a taxi-driver, but God wants the gratitude of heart that sings His praises. God does not need you or your gifts, but God is enormously pleased with your thankful heart and therefore also with your gifts, that come from the heart. And yet even money is not enough. If we want to build a church, I do not mean a building, but a church that is the body of believers, then it takes also your time, your prayers, your interest.
Some may say: Is it never enough? As if we can ever praise God enough. God has given Himself to us. Look at the cross God gave His dear Son for us. We can never repay Him, but we can build His church, visit the lonely and the sick, comfort the afflicted, give our gifts cheerfully, we can forgive each other as God forgave us, we can love each other as Christ loved us, we can wash each other’s feet, be the least and serve each other, as Jesus served us and gave His life for us.
So we are called to be thankful, to praise and magnify God’s Name, to be priests and workers in God’s house. Shall it never be enough? No, congregation, an eternity will not be long enough to praise God. But be sure of this: One day you will hear, Well done, good and faithful servant.
And when you hear that, you may know that the Lord will be very happy. God rejoices to see His children being thankful workers.
You receive so much: Think of your family, your work, your health and a host of other things. And above all: God gave you His Son, and in the Son you have eternal life.
How can you repay this God for the bounty of His grace and the riches of His love? You cannot repay, but you may give your heart to the Father in heaven, a heart full of praise.
You may give Him a life of gratitude.
You may yield to Him all that you have.
And giving (giving your heart, your life, your love, your money), giving makes rich.
The more you give yourself to God, the more you will enjoy the fellowship with God. May God give us to understand it:
All things come from Thee
and of Thy own we have given to Thee.
Amen.