Glenn Armstrong

"O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid, thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord." Psalms 116:16,17

One thing about the God and man relationship seems to jump out of the Holy Scripture—God just does not like for man to take Him for granted! He expects us to be thankful. In fact, God makes one generalized sweeping characterization of humanity by declaring, "Neither were they thankful," Romans 1:21.

When we take God for granted, like everything else we take for granted, we do not take Him seriously. God has taken the initiative in making Himself known to man through clear creation, innate awareness, understanding, observation, rationalization, revelation, inspiration, incarnation, etc. He does not take rejection of His manifestations lightly. In fact, the argument in the Book of Romans is that He gets mad when He is taken for granted! (If you think God is all heart and not head then you should read the Bible more.) A righteous reaction is declared by God – "He gave them up," Romans 1:24. Better be thankful. The character of man causes his own condemnation.

The Old Testament writer of Psalms 116 already knew God expected His people to be grateful. The psalmist wrote that he "loved the Lord" because God heard his prayers (v1); was with him all his life (v2); assisted him in times of trouble (v3); delivered him (v4); was gracious, righteous and merciful to him (v5); helped him when he was low (6); and would be with him until he died (8-15).

Psalms chapter 116 has a natural outline to it. It is all about the peace God provides to those who follow Him. Thanksgiving is a result of the peace (adequate resources) God gives to the believer as he has need.

Outline of Psalms 116

1. Peace and Prayer, 116:1-4

2. Peace and Grace, 116:5-8

3. Peace and Conduct, 116:9-11

4. Peace and Person Response, 116:12-19

A. Thanksgiving is the natural result of love and peace.

To love God is required by Old Testament divine law and penalties followed with certainty and severity appropriate to the lack of love and loyalty. However, the desire and ability to love God is not part of the depraved sinful nature of fallen people. The New Testament believer has a special enabling grace (favor) to enable us to love God in response to His first displaying His love to us. In the Old Testament obedience was rewarded by limited earthly prosperity. In the New Testament obedience is rewarded with eternal spiritual heavenly blessing, Ephesians 1:3.

Being thankful to God for the New Testament believer is not in order to get from God, but rather in order to give back to God. The Old Testament saint might say, "I love God so He will bless me." The New Testament saint says, "I’ll love God and be thankful to Him because of His pardon of my personal sins and because of His presence with me." In both testaments God hears our prayers with the purpose of helping us. When He helps, He expects appreciation from us.

Small minds are easily satisfied, and so are Christians who only have small spiritual experiences with God. However, the more God has proven Himself to us with ever-increasing experiences, the more He expects us to be grateful and believe Him for even greater situations. When we love God and appreciate the peace He gives us, we are expected to enlarge our faith as well as our faithfulness. As long as we live we are to trust God for larger spheres of service to Him. It is natural to rely on the supernatural inexhaustible supply of God’s power in times of distress, discouragement and even death.

B. Thanksgiving is best demonstrated in proper conduct.

God desires us to depend on Him in the same simple relationship that a child depends on its parents. God never overlooks the weakest of His children. The text gives us God’s program for blessing the believer who may be undergoing conflicts in their lives:

1. Return and rest, (v7,8)

2. Righteous conduct, (9)

3. Real faith, (10)

4. Renew a godly testimony, (10)

5. Renounce rationalization, (11)

Being thankful includes living for the Lord in a righteous manner. This includes our head, our hearts, as well as our tongues. The head must reason responsibly rather than rationalize away our failures. The heart must want to honor God through proper conduct, and the tongue must be guarded by Christian convictions rather than by a sinful nature. The tongue will only say what the head and heart tells it to say. More specifically, the tongue will say what the head is thinking and the heart is wishing.

Thanksgiving is impossible without a firm trust in the faithfulness of God and His revealed truth. What we say as well as what we do is a natural display of what we believe.

C. Thanksgiving will naturally seek expression.

Love seeks expression or it is not love. The same is true with being thankful. The psalmist spoke for all of us when he declares the Lord has been "mindful of us" (v12) and has blessed us with the same power and consideration that He demonstrated in creation, (v15).

Implied in the passage is the desire to express back to God some form of appreciation. Two natural ways of showing our gratitude to God is, one, what can I give to Him and two, what can I say about Him. The text teaches that we can keep our word to God by paying anything we vowed to Him (14), we can be a willing servant to the Lord (16), we can give an offering of thanksgiving and pray (17), we can live honorable lives for the Lord in plain sight of the unsaved world (18), and we can praise our Lord in the cities and communities in which we live (19).

Thanksgiving Day will always be a special day to me. On Thanksgiving Day, 1947, I went to the First Baptist Church, Galveston, Indiana at 9:00 in the morning. It was a special Thanksgiving service for men. I didn’t go because I wanted to go. I went because my dad said I was going with him! I didn’t listen to anything that was said in the service. I had my mind on dinner, rabbit hunting and basketball later in the day. On the way out of the service the pastor asked me one simple question as he shook my hand. He said, "Glenn when are you going to receive Christ as your Savior?" I said, "Well, right now I guess." and went on my way home.

I know this is not a very impressive conversion story, but then it doesn’t need to be. It was the day and the way I came to Christ fifty-nine years ago. I don’t know of anyone who received Christ on Thursday morning. In fact, I don’t know anyone who goes to Baptist churches on Thursday morning. I don’t know anyone else, but I did go and I did receive Christ.

I didn’t do any of the things commonly associated with conversion. I didn’t go forward. In fact, I went out the back door. I didn’t pray. I didn’t read the Bible. I didn’t have anyone counsel me. I diidn’t respond to an invitation. I didn’t try Jesus. But I did the only one thing that really counts with Christ – I trusted Him. I still do. I have no hope for the salvation of my soul apart from the work Christ did for me on a hillside, outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago when God the Father accepted the Son’s death on the cross as the sole and sufficient payment for my sins.

I’m still seeking some way to serve the Lord as an expression of my appreciation for my salvation and a lifetime of His grace to me and my family. God isn’t done with me yet. I stopped preaching and pastoring seven years ago, thinking I was finished. However, God saved my greatest opportunity to speak for Him and my greatest work to do for Him until I was 70 years old. He brought Fran and me to Maui. I preach and teach to people from all over the world. I don’t have to go to them; God brings them to Kihei Baptist every Sunday. I have been in 20 some church programs, but the most impossible one is here on Maui.

Thank you Lord for saving me, for not giving up on me, for still using me, for trusting me with the most impossible task of my ministry and for keeping it until I am too old to do anything but rely on your faithfulness.

I don’t know much, but I do know I’D BETTER BE THANKFUL! And I Am.

GAA/November 2006 (f)