Gratitude is the new therapy for well-being.  We read about it in magazine articles to improve our mental health.  We are encouraged to focus on the positive, and practice habits like – what are 3 things you can you be thankful for today?  This has become especially important over the past couple of years with the ongoing negative impact of the COVID pandemic.

And yet it is not a new thing at all.  The bible is full of scripture about thankfulness.  The psalms especially.  Being thankful is good therapy – it lifts our eyes off our difficult circumstances.  We do it each week at Bible Study.

For Christians our thankfulness goes beyond being thankful for beauty and relationships and good health, it looks to the Creator of all things good, to the one who made us, who loves us and will always be there for us.

Psalm 138 is a psalm of David, one who knew trouble and hardship – especially during times when he was being chased by King Saul who sought to kill him, or during conflict with surrounding enemies and nations – and yet he praised God.

David knew God and despite his circumstances he continued to praise him for his unfailing love and faithfulness.

David doesn’t just offer lip service of praise to God, in verse 1 it says I praise you, or I give you thanks, Lord, with all my heart…

We use the word heart to mean the physical organ or the place of our emotions.  The Israelites used the word in the same way.  David’s thanks and praise emanated from the core of his being – the centre of his life.  It represents his whole being.  Do we praise God with our whole being?

His praise and thanks move him to proclamation.  Just like the title of our service today – Prayer, Praise and Proclamation!

David say’s he will sing God’s praise before ‘the gods’.  These ‘gods’ represent foreign gods, he is promising to witness to an unbelieving or wrongly believing world. He sings to those who worship other ‘gods’ – today that might mean those who trust in or worship wealth, health, sex, power and other idols.

David thanks God by declaring to others how good God is.  He shares his testimony of how God had listened and answered his prayer and he proclaims God’s character – his unfailing love and faithfulness.

David knows firsthand of God’s love, mercy, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness.  And he wants everyone to experience this – he wants all the Kings of the earth to praise you Lord, when they hear what you have decreed.  May they sing of the ways of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord is great.

David has experienced God’s love and witnessed his glory.  This causes him to bow down before God and praise his name.  Many may witness God’s glory but do not recognize or acknowledge God.  Psalm 19 verse 1 says that the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

In Romans 1: 20-23 the apostle Paul says that since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen…but (many) neither glorified God nor gave thanks to him…and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.

Many are blind to God’s glory today; they worship the created rather than the creator.  Like David we need to sing God’s praises for all to hear, we need to proclaim his words, his truth and give witness to his love.

It can be as simple as voicing thanks to God if you are sharing a beautiful sunset beside someone who may see the beauty but not recognize Gods’ hand in it.  See that beautiful sunset on the screen, I sat and reveled in God’s glory as I watched the sun go down on Thursday night.  I was so full of his praise I wanted to share it with others. I don’t do a lot of posting on face book, but I wanted to point everyone to the Creator of sunsets – so I posted the photo with a simple quotation from Psalm 19 saying that God’s glory was on display.

We can also share by telling others of how God was with us through a particularly hard time.  How he answered a prayer, or you might talk of God-incidences when things turn out, rather that coincidences.

As Jesus called Simon Peter in our reading from Luke today, he also calls us to ‘fish for people’.  That might sound a bit strange but basically it means Jesus wants us to bring people into a relationship with him.  Jesus longs for all people to know of his love, worship him and revel in his glory.

But first we need to be caught fully by Jesus.  We need to see his glory and like David and Simon Peter bow down before him, to be in awe of him, knowing his love for us.  Love that causes us to sing his praise with our whole being and proclaim him to the world.

We need to tell others that while God is fully glorious and immortal and powerful, he also looks kindly on the lowly, he sees us, he walks with us in times of trouble as David says in verse 6.

We don’t proclaim that people will never have any troubles if they become a Christian, rather we tell them that they can know Jesus’ presence and comfort and strength during those times.

As Jesus called Simon Peter, he said “do not be afraid”.  This is a common line in scripture; we will face hardships and trouble, we will find it difficult to witness to Jesus in this world, but Jesus says, “don’t be afraid, for I am with you.”

One of the books I read over my break was a biography by missionary Dr Helen Roseveare who was in the Congo in the 50’s and 60’s and was taken hostage and suffered beatings, imprisonment, and threats of death for 5 months by terrorists after independence in 1964.  Her story talks of how she came to faith, how she had times of doubt and how she learned to give God glory through all the highs and lows of her time, even the darkest months as a hostage.  She says in her epilogue how her suffering just seemed to highlight God’s love and that she learned a little of the tremendous privilege of walking with Jesus, of being identified with Christ.  She prayed, praised, and proclaimed the mercy and goodness and faithfulness of God, just like David did in this psalm 138.

David begins this psalm declaring that God had answered his prayer but finishes with the reality that he will continue to walk in the midst of trouble, trusting that God will save him.

The last verse declares that God will vindicate him, because the Lord’s love endures forever – but the final line is another prayer, do not abandon the works of your hands.

I love David’s psalms for they are often raw and honest.  That last line show that he is still just a bit afraid of what may happen to him despite God answering his prayers in the past.  He has devoted most of the psalm to his conviction that God is faithful, so why does he need to plead for God’s continued faithfulness?  Because he is human and like us probably struggled at times with unbelief.

David gives us permission to acknowledge our unbelief and encourages us to call out to God in those times of doubt – Lord, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief! 

Jesus has declared that he will never leave us or forsake us, he will not abandon the works of his hands.  We are his works, and he will always walk with us.

As we head into 2022 my prayer is that we embrace the practice of daily gratitude – it is good for us!  But let’s make it Godly gratitude.  I pray that as individuals and as a Church in our community – that we will pray to the Lord, knowing that he hears and answers our prayers, that we will praise and give him thanks with all our heart – for all his love, goodness, and faithfulness, acknowledging his glory and proclaiming it before all people that they may come and also see his glory and bow before him, receiving his love for all eternity. Amen.