Glorify God by Thanksgiving-3

여호와께 감사하라 그는 선하시며 그 인자하심이 영원함이로다 ² 모든 신에 뛰어나신 하나님께 감사하라 그 인자하심이 영원함이로다 ³ 모든 주에 뛰어나신 주께 감사하라 그 인자하심이 영원함이로다. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. ² Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. ³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever. (Ps. 136:1-3)

전능하신 자 하나님 여호와께서 말씀하사 해 돋는 데서부터 지는 데까지 세상을 부르셨도다 ² 온전히 아름다운 시온에서 하나님이 빛을 발하셨도다 ³ 우리 하나님이 임하사 잠잠치 아니하시니 그 앞에는 불이 삼키고 그 사방에는 광풍이 불리로다 ⁴ 하나님이 그 백성을 판단하시려고 윗 하늘과 아래 땅에 반포하여 ⁵ 이르시되 나의 성도를 네 앞에 모으라 곧 제사로 나와 언약한 자니라 하시도다 ⁶ 하늘이 그 공의를 선포하리니 하나님 그는 심판장이심이로다 (셀라)  ⁷ 내 백성아 들을지어다 내가 말하리라 이스라엘아 내가 네게 증거하리라 나는 하나님 곧 네 하나님이로다 ⁸ 내가 너의 제물을 인하여는 너를 책망치 아니하리라 네 번제가 항상 내 앞에 있음이로다 ⁹ 내가 네 집에서 수소나 네 우리에서 수염소를 취치 아니하리니 ¹⁰ 이는 삼림의 짐승들과 천산의 생축이 다 내 것이며 ¹¹ 산의 새들도 나의 아는 것이며 들의 짐승도 내 것임이로다 ¹² 내가 가령 주려도 네게 이르지 않을 것은 세계와 거기 충만한 것이 내 것임이로다 ¹³ 내가 수소의 고기를 먹으며 염소의 피를 마시겠느냐 ¹⁴ 감사로 하나님께 제사를 드리며 지극히 높으신 자에게 네 서원을 갚으며 ¹⁵ 환난 날에 나를 부르라 내가 너를 건지리니 네가 나를 영화롭게 하리로다 ¹⁶ 악인에게는 하나님이 이르시되 네가 어찌 내 율례를 전하며 내 언약을 네 입에 두느냐 ¹⁷ 네가 교훈을 미워하고 내 말을 네 뒤로 던지며 ¹⁸ 도적을 본즉 연합하고 간음하는 자와 동류가 되며 ¹⁹ 네 입을 악에게 주고 네 혀로 궤사를 지으며 ²⁰ 앉아서 네 형제를 공박하며 네 어미의 아들을 비방하는도다 ²¹ 네가 이 일을 행하여도 내가 잠잠하였더니 네가 나를 너와 같은 줄로 생각하였도다 그러나 내가 너를 책망하여 네 죄를 네 목전에 차례로 베풀리라 하시는도다 ²² 하나님을 잊어버린 너희여 이제 이를 생각하라 그렇지 않으면 내가 너희를 찢으리니 건질 자 없으리라 ²³ 감사로 제사를 드리는 자가 나를 영화롭게 하나니 그 행위를 옳게 하는 자에게 내가 하나님의 구원을 보이리라. The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. ² Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. ³ Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. ⁴ He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: ⁵ "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!" ⁶ The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah ⁷ "Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. ⁸ Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. ⁹ I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. ¹⁰ For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. ¹¹ I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. ¹² "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. ¹³ Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? ¹⁴ Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, ¹⁵ and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." ¹⁶ But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? ¹⁷ For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. ¹⁸ If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers. ¹⁹ "You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. ²⁰ You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. ²¹ These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. ²² "Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! ²³ The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!" (Ps. 50:1-23)

FCF: We tend to offer a lip service of thanksgiving without real-life thanksgiving.

주제: 하나님은 재판장이시기에 우리는 진정한 감사로 하나님을 영화롭게 해야 한다.

Theme: Because God is the Judge, we must glorify Him by genuine thanksgiving.

Introduction: Pious talk, unless it is converted into pious deeds, is empty, superficial, and hypocritical. In one or another way, a great number of people in the church have such a problem in their everyday living. I heard about a lady who was so sincere in prayer, worship, and service in the church. She served in the church choir, attended every Wednesday service and Friday night prayer meeting, and devoted herself to various church ministries. So, she seemed to be regarded as a faithful member of the church. However, her church people didn’t consider her as a pious Christian, having a hard time understanding why she would speak and act so differently when she was alone with her close friends. As soon as she left the church building, she began to speak vulgar, cursing words against her pastor, church members, and friends. She refused to pay her debts to the lenders. She took advantage of her employees. She was notorious for her hypocrisy, double-mindedness, and duplicity. Her church members and friends didn’t believe her profuse tears she would pour out in prayer. They didn’t believe the sincerity of her public prayers or words even though she worked hard for the church. They assumed she worked for her vainglory or people’s approval, not for God’s glory or the church. Even though she talked piously in the church, they assumed her piety was counterfeit.

         Well, she was not the only one who had the discrepancies between a life in the church and a life in the world. All of us do not have a perfect match between our profession of faith and our actual lives. We may speak as if we were godly, devout, and honest. However, we may live a life totally different from our confession of faith. In fact, this is a perennial problem with people in the church. There are those in the church who blatantly disregard the word of God and live according to their depraved hearts in the world. There is an utter discord between their talk and their walk. The psalmist calls such people as wicked in v. 16. He points out the disparity between their words and their actions. He tells the reason of their hypocrisy lies in the fact that they have forgotten God. God knows the true conditions of their souls. Having mercy on them, God wants them to humbly turn from their audacity to God. He wants them to offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God” (v. 23). From this verse, we learn that we should glorify God by genuine thanksgiving. In the midst of superficial and commercialized thanksgiving season, we must remind ourselves that we must glorify God 1) with faith in God the Judge (vv. 1-6), genuine worship (vv. 7-15), and practical righteousness (vv. 16-23). Let’s get into the final point, which is, we must glorify God with practical righteousness.

      I.         재판장이신 하나님을 믿음으로

With faith in God the Judge (vv. 1-6)

    II.         진정한 예배로

With genuine worship (7-15)

  III.         의로운 삶을 실천하므로

With practical righteousness (16-23)

Without faith, we can’t please God. So, faith in God is necessary for true worship. And true faith and worship lead to godly living. Without believing in God and worshiping Him truly, therefore, we can’t live a righteous life. If we fail to live according to God’s Word, we may have to say that our faith is not working as it ought and our worship is perfunctory and superficial. The psalmist notes why God refuses to accept Israel’s worship. It is because of their wickedness. Their sinful lifestyle makes their worship unacceptable before God. It is originally attributable to their failure to believe God as their Judge who punishes, chastises, and disciplines their sins. Because they don’t believe God sees their hearts during worship and punishes them for their willful violations of the law, they have gone astray in their relationships with God and neighbors. Their worship is without gratefulness to God and their lives are tainted with iniquities against their neighbors.   

Then, who are these people God indicts of their sinful lifestyle? God addresses them as “the wicked.” We find the answer in the Hebrew word “the wicked.” The Hebrew word “rasha‘” refers to those who act contrary to God’s righteous character and those who blatantly violate God’s commandments. In the psalms, the "wicked" (רְשָׁעִים, rasha'im) are typically proud, practical atheists. Listen to the words of the wicked recorded in Ps 10: 4 and 11: 악인은 그 교만한 얼굴로 말하기를 여호와께서 이를 감찰치 아니하신다 하며 그 모든 사상에 하나님이 없다 하나이다. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God.; "저의 마음에 이르기를 하나님이 잊으셨고 그 얼굴을 가리우셨으니 영원히 보지 아니하시리라 하나이다. He says in his heart, "God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it." Even though they may talk about God, the wicked indeed deny the existence and activities of God through their sinful lifestyle.

Thus, they hate God's commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander, and cheat others (Ps 37:21). They are living among God’s covenant people. God knows who and what they are, and what they do against His law. Thus, He addresses such people in the covenant community as “the wicked.” God sees them as those who act wickedly and get condemned for their iniquities at His court. God enumerates the list of their sins (vv. 16-22). First, they offer lip service but their hearts are far away from God’s law. In vv. 16-17, God says, "What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? ¹⁷ For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. 네가 어찌 내 율례를 전하며 내 언약을 네 입에 두느냐 ¹⁷ 네가 교훈을 미워하고 내 말을 네 뒤로 던지며.

The NET notes, “The rhetorical question expresses sarcastic amazement. God is shocked that such evildoers would give lip-service to his covenantal demands, for their lifestyle is completely opposed to His standards” (see vv. 18–20). They hear God’s Word and speak God’s Word. But they do not obey it. They are not doers of His Word but also active violators of His Word. In fact, they hate God’s commandments and throw them away as trash. Their mouths sound pious and their hearts reject God’s word. The prophet Isaiah tells us God’s indictment of such people as follows: 주께서 가라사대 이 백성이 입으로는 나를 가까이하며 입술로는 나를 존경하나 그 마음은 내게서 멀리 떠났나니 그들이 나를 경외함은 사람의 계명으로 가르침을 받았을 뿐이라. And the Lord said: "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men (Isa. 29:13). The root of their wickedness is pride, hypocrisy, and self-deception in their hearts.

Such hypocritical, ungodly attitude toward God and His Word is manifested in various ways. Second, they endorse the sins of thieves and adulterers (v. 18). Not only are they pleased with such sinners, but also they keep company with them. This means that they commit the same sins. They endorse the violators of the eighth and seventh commandments. Since they violated the first table of the Ten Commandments, they easily violated the second table of the Ten Commandments. In so doing, they deliberately disregarded the spirit of the law of God, that is, love for God and neighbor. Their failure to love their neighbors arise from their failure to love God. It arises from their disregard of the authority of God the Judge and His Word. Third, they use their tongues to speak evil of their neighbors (vv. 19-20). They don’t keep their tongues under control, using them for evil. They speak evil of their brothers behind their back. They are backbiters against their close neighbors who trust them. They are hypocritical slanderers. They say one thing before them and say another thing behind them. They speak what they have in their hearts, that is, hatred and jealousy against their neighbors. Fourth, they take God’s silence and patience as God’s absence and inaction, so that they ignore the fact God gives them time to repent (v. 21). They ignore God’s goodness and use it as an opportunity to continue their sins. Instead of fearing God’s judgment, they continue sinning and believing that God will not do anything to stop them. They disregard God’s holy character, thinking of God as one like them.

So, God rebukes them and lays the charge before them. God wants them to remember there will be God’s dire judgment upon their wilful disobedience. Like a ferocious lion tearing apart its prey, God will bring His judgment upon those who claim to be part of the covenant community and yet live in rebellion against God’s covenant. God calls them as those who have forgotten God. They have forgotten God, not because they have a bad memory, but because they willfully ignore God. Wilful forgetfulness and negligence in their relationship with God causes them to act wickedly against His law. Even though they thought God would not do anything to punish them, God says, they would fall into the angry hands of God. And God is patient with them to give them time to repent. They should have repented of their sins, thanking God for His patience with them. The apostle Peter says, 주의 약속은 어떤이의 더디다고 생각하는 것 같이 더딘 것이 아니라 오직 너희를 대하여 오래 참으사 아무도 멸망치 않고 다 회개하기에 이르기를 원하시느니라. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Pet. 3:9).  

         We see this point in the Lord’s exhortation expressed in v. 23: 감사로 제사를 드리는 자가 나를 영화롭게 하나니 그 행위를 옳게 하는 자에게 내가 하나님의 구원을 보이리라. “whoever offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice and orders his way rightly glorifies God. Thankful worship combined with righteous living truly glorifies God.” God promises His help, deliverance to those who walk with thankfulness and righteousness. We must keep in mind lip service never glorifies God. Our profession of faith and thanksgiving must coincide with our righteous actions. When we worship God thankfully, we can have confidence in God’s deliverance from various dangers and temptations. Thankful hearts won’t concede to the devil’s forceful temptations. Right living is a good way to experience God’s deliverance.

         As we go through the Thanksgiving season, we must examine our hearts and deeds. We may offer empty words of thanksgiving to God, while ignoring God’s authority and word. While enjoying slandering our neighbors, we may try to show off our pious sounding words of thanksgiving. But God see through all things taking place in our hearts and lives. Our sinful walk nullifies our profession of thankfulness. If we feel thankful to God, it means we must honor His Word. If we keep violating His Word, no matter how thankful words we may say, we incur God’s wrath upon ourselves. God calls on us to see and be appalled at the discrepancy between our thankful words and our sinful deeds.

         If we give lip service to God without any substantiating evidence, then we may be likened to a child who professes his love to his parents and yet act always against their will, or to a spouse who flatters his wife with flowery words and yet meets with another woman in secret. I remember Frank Lucas, a major character in the movie American Gangster, distributing turkeys to the poor in his New York neighborhood during the Thanksgiving holiday. He may have done it out of his sympathy for the poor. Or he may have done it to show off his generosity. Though we do not know his hidden motive, we can tell he was a wicked man who destroyed many lives with his drugs, gambling, and prostitution businesses. He made a fortune and used a little bit of his illegally earned money to show the poor how good a man he was. He was ruining the lives of the poverty-stricken people in New York and at the same time giving them turkeys to celebrate Thanksgiving. If he had spent the money he rightly earned for the poor, he would have been considered a generous man. He was not thanking God in a right way. While flouting God’s law, he tried to help the poor to have a turkey on the Thanksgiving dinner table. This is not a good way to observe the Thanksgiving holiday.

         How are we to glorify God by genuine thanksgiving? As we look back on the days of this year, we have to think deeply about what God has done for us. First, we have to thank God for His great salvation in Christ. We have to thank the Father for His love and grace shown on the cross. We have to thank God for His daily provision and protection. We have to thank God for all goods we enjoy today. At the same times, we must not forget to repent of our sins such as ignoring God’s Word and our neighbor with our words. Thanksgiving should be a time to reflect on God’s generosity and our shortcomings as well. Contrition is not the opposite of thanksgiving. In fact, we will be reassured of God’s forgiving grace and love as we confess our sins to God. Thanksgiving without contrition may be an empty lip-service. If we are honest enough with ourselves, then we will worship God with thankfulness and remorsefulness. Remember what David said: 하나님의 구하시는 제사는 상한 심령이라 하나님이여 상하고 통회하는 마음을 주께서 멸시치 아니하시리이다. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (Ps. 51:17). Repentant hearts cannot but to be thankful for God’s generosity and faithfulness in Christ Jesus. Genuine thanksgiving is always accompanied with true worship and godly living. We must not miss this point during this Thanksgiving season.   

Abraham Lincoln knew this and kept a balance between thanking God for blessings and repenting of their sins. He expressed it this way: 우리는 천국의 가장 귀한 복을 받은 자들입니다. 평화와 번영으로 여러 해 동안 보호받았습니다. 우리는 다른 어떤 나라에 없었던 번성과 부와 능력에서 크게 성장하였습니다. 그러나 우리는 하나님을 잊었습니다. 화평으로 우리를 보존하시고 우리를 번성케 하고 부하고 능하게 하신 하나님의 은혜로우신 손을 잊었습니다. 우리는 우리의 거짓된 마음에서 이 모든 축복이 우리의 잘난 지혜와 힘으로 이룬 것이라고 헛되이 생각했습니다. 끝이지 않는 성공에 취하여 너무도 자족한 나머지 우리를 구원하시고 보호하시는 은혜의 필요성을 망각하였습니다. 너무도 교만하여 우리를 지으신 하나님께 기도하지 않았습니다.  전 미국 백성이 한 마음과 한 목소리로 진지함과 경건함과 감사함으로 하나님을 인정함이 내게는 마땅한 것으로 보입니다. 그러므로 저는 전 미국에 있는 미국 시민들과 해양에 나가 있는 자들과 외국 땅에 머물고 있는 모든 자들이 11월 마지막 주 목요일을 하늘에 계신 우리의 자비로우신 아버지께 감사와 찬양의 날로 정하여 지킬 것을 요청하는 바입니다. “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Thanksgiving must be a day that we recognize and confess our unworthiness and God’s worthiness, our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness, and our unfaithfulness and God’s faithfulness. To make our lives be filled with gratitude, we must love God with all our hearts deeply grounded in the amazing grace demonstrated on the cross of Christ. Also, we must put God’s word in our hearts, not in our lips. We must speak what we treasure in our hearts, that is, God’s Word. That we treasure God’s word in our hearts implies we always mediate on it and strive to practice it by the enabling power of God’s grace. As we do so, we revitalize our relationship with God in worship and view our neighbors as people we are called to love with the love of God. Thanksgiving is a time to remember all of this.  

Conclusion: In Budapest, a man goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?" The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you."  The man is incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week." A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "We cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy." The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week." A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there's no goat -- only the nine of us." Thanksgiving is a forgotten art even among Christians. It depends on how we look at things. To be thankful under all circumstances, we must change the way we look at things. Positive perspective makes life more bearable and even pleasant and thankful.

Some of you may feel you have nothing to be thankful to God. Others of you may say you have so many things to be thankful to God. If you are average Christians, you do have some things to thank God for and other things to complain about. Honestly speaking, it is very hard for us to be thankful for all things; it may be practically impossible to be thankful to God all the times. However, God wants us to always maintain a thankful spirit under all circumstances. We know thanksgiving is what God wants from us. So, we have tried or pretended to offer thanks to God under all circumstances. In fact, we have failed to thank God because we fail to see God as our Judge, worship Him with thankfulness, and live according to God’s righteous standard. There are times we complain when we ought to thank God. Though we thank God, we thank Him only verbally. While thanking God, we violate His Word and speak against our neighbors.

What is true thanksgiving? It consists of three elements. First, it is an attitude of faith in God. Faith in God’s judgment is necessary for godly living, which is an essential component for true thanksgiving. Without fearing God, we won’t be able to truly thank God. In light of God’s judgment, we must realize our sinfulness and seek God’s forgiving grace. When we truly see God not only as our Father, but also our Judge, we will be ready to offer genuine thanksgiving to God.

Second, the second component of genuine thanksgiving is thankful worship. We must bring our sacrifices of thanksgiving to God. Recognizing the fact all we have is given by God, we have to offer thanks to God with what we have. When we make thankful sacrifices to God, we must remember God’s perfect Sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ who shed His blood to redeem us from sin. Depending upon His sacrificial love, we can truly offer genuine worship with thankfulness. We cannot but to always thank God for the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, even though we lose everything. Our thankful worship arises from a conscious realization of our sinfulness and God’s graciousness.

Third, the third element of thanksgiving is righteous living. It is evidence that our thankful speech and worship is not counterfeit, but unpretentious. Our thankful speech and worship will be empty unless they are supported by our daily walk in Christ. As we have learned, only those who truly thank God glorify God. The purpose of our existence is to glorify and enjoy God forever. To fulfill this purpose, we must truly thank God with all seriousness. With faith in God the Judge, thankful worship, and righteous living, we must glorify God. God’s promise of deliverance is there for us when we truly offer thanksgiving to God. Let’s seek God’s abounding grace, so that we will glorify God with thankfulness during this season of thanksgiving.

Benediction: ²⁴ 능히 너희를 보호하사 거침이 없게 하시고 너희로 그 영광 앞에 흠이 없이 즐거움으로 서게 하실자 ²⁵ 곧 우리 구주 홀로 하나이신 하나님께 우리 주 예수 그리스도로 말미암아 영광과 위엄과 권력과 권세가 만고 전부터 이제와 세세에 있을지어다 아멘. ²⁴ Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, ²⁵ to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jud 1:24-25)