Persistent Gratitude

John McMann

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Scripture

Psalm 69:1–4 NIV

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal.

Psalm 69:29–36 NIV

But as for me, afflicted and in pain— may your salvation, God, protect me. I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hooves. The poor will see and be glad— you who seek God, may your hearts live! The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them, for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there.

Pray.

Introduction

Be grateful for what you have. That statement is one that I heard often growing up…perhaps it is one that floats around your house. When I was younger, this was a mantra in our home. My parents worked hard to provide for us. We did not have much. We did not have severe struggles like many do in this world, but I remember having all these friends that took crazy vacations and had all of the things. Often times my brothers and I would come home from a night out with a friend and ask for something....and my parents would say, “be grateful for what you have.”

I love thanksgiving. You want to know why? Because I love pecan pie and football. Oh and family. yeah that too. I have also always struggled with thanksgiving because I am stubborn and hard-headed. I do not like being told to be grateful, haha. Like, I will be grateful, unless you tell me to.

So, today, I am going to tell you to be grateful, haha. Thanks preacher.

Thanksgiving week. Important practice for us.

I have to be honest, when we were first led to this psalm for today it was for the ending....the last handful of verses. And if you just stayed with those then this could be a simple thanksgiving sermon. But when you read the whole psalm it is messy. It is full of pain and agony. The gratitude is the bookend to a cry for help.

Maybe appropriately we will consider gratitude when things are really difficult.

Psalm 69

This psalm has historically been attributed to David as he has written many of the psalms....but others date this to someone later on crying out in the midst of Babylonian exile. The psalm rides a roller coaster of emotion. From the reality of struggles and crisies and abandonment the psalmist is facing....to the enemies that are attacking him from all directions even though he is innocent. The psalmist curses them and calls for God’s righteous wrath and judgement.

But then he turns to worship, praise, and gratitude. It is life’s emotions, it is raw, and so real. The psalms are sometimes a mixed bag for us, hard for people to get into them or know what to make of them or how to read them.

I think we struggle with them because honestly too much of our language and particularly prayers are so far from them. We have been cultured in our world to speak in surface level nonsense and smoothes out everything that it is even how we talk to God. I love what Bruggeman says about this phenomenon:

“Thus I suggest that most of the Psalms can only be appropriately prayed by people who are living at the edge of their lives, sensitive to the raw hurts, the primitive passions, and the naive elations that are at the bottom of our life.

....

[The Psalms] asks us to depart from the closely managed world of public survival, to move into the open, frightening, healing world of speech with the Holy One.”

Still this begs the question.... how does the psalmist get to this place of gratitude? And why is it important for us?

Specifically for us this morning, what does it look like to have persistent gratitude when things are hard?

Persistent Gratitude

So how does he get to this place?

Things are tough. Everything is crashing around. And if this is David there are times when he is literally running for his life....if it is someone in exile, everything around them looks hopeless. Exile, religious persecution, famine, slavery, and the list goes on. As bad as 2020 looks for us, this is far more drastic.

Psalm 69:3 NIV

I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

Have you ever gotten to this point? Maybe you have or are in a place where your voice is failing and your eyes are failing, no where to turn.

There was a season with Luke after his diagnosis with diabetes where the common stomach bug put us in the hospital multiple times. We just couldnt catch a break and were so scared of this new thing. It is difficult enough with a child that cannot keep anything down, but with a Type 1 diabetic to lose all of his food is a serious problem because they still have insulin in their bodies. Very dangerous.

I remember a few weeks where things were really touch and go. Sometimes I would have to leave lauren and luke for a minute just to cry and pray and then get myself together. My prayer partners one morning laid hands on me and prayed for me and Luke and Lauren. As soon as the prayer was finished, Lauren was calling me that we needed to go to the hospital again.

My voice and eyes were failing looking for God.

But that is the time more than ever to keep calling out to him. The psalmist does that in verse 13:

Psalm 69:16–18 NIV

Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Come near and rescue me; deliver me because of my foes.

The petition is the first part of persistence. Complaining about God, or complaining about the circumstances leads to desperation and doubt....complaining to God is prayer. And he is big enough for these cries.

After petition, the psalmists turns to perspective...

Persistent gratitude is rooted in perspective

The psalmist turns to remembering the salvation of God. The big picture. As desperate as things might be, this is the God who rescues, who never turns his face from the beloved and as bad as things might seem to be, will never fail to accomplish His salvation for his people.

Friends, there are times in this life where you must fight to get your heads up over the circumstances of this life and remember the promises of God.

That’s verse 29:

Psalm 69:29 NIV

But as for me, afflicted and in pain— may your salvation, God, protect me.

You can see his head lifting. Looking to the salvation of God. Even if enemy or death wins the day, it will not win the war.

Persistent gratitude is rooted in perspective, but it is born in worship...

Persistent gratitude is born in worship

Gratitude is born in worship. In both the corporate gathering and also in the life of the individual.

Radically, the psalmist begins to sing. Perspective leads to an outflowing of song and worship.

Psalm 69:30 NIV

I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.

According to the psalms, and according to the new testament authors that are writing to communities facing difficult days, Worship is central to the community of Jesus.

Take for example Paul, to the Colossians...

Colossians 3:16 NIV

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Gratitude is the outflowing of worship.

I have become convinced, “Not all worshippers are grateful people, but a life of gratitude is born in worship.”

Explain this: people for church there whole life and do not have gratitude. But this kind of life we are talking about requires worship.

James K.A. Smith Desiring the Kingdom

“Perhaps it is by hymns, songs, and choruses that the word of Christ “dwells in us richly” and we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Don Saliers suggests as much when, discussing the experiences of elderly saints in a local congregation, he comments, ‘Their music was ‘by heart,’ in the heart, and sung from the heart. Through the practice of singing, the dispositions and beliefs expressed in the words of the hymns--gratitude, trust, sadness, joy, hope--had become knit into their bodies as integral parts of the theology by which they lived.’”

By worship, singing, by lifting our hands in praise, by dropping to the floor in submission, the words, the prayers of song, the grace of declaration is becoming knitted into your bodies.

Worship is formational.

Let me get really practical for a second.

What if singing is vitally important. Like really singing with the congregation.

I learned to worship with other worshippers. Last week, we had just learned terrible news in my family. I was tired and stressed out. Sad. and to be in the room and hear your voices (which has not been every week) filled me up in a way that I cannot even describe.

What if you neighbor needs you to worship, your spouse needs you to worship.

What if you need you to worship.

A word about hand raising. One of my best friends told me one time, I am never going to raise my hand in worship it is not my style.

Tim Hawkins:

Have you ever heard Tim Hawkins stand up about hand raising? Oh it is hilarious:

carry TV

Big screen

Fish was this big

hold my baby

dueling light bulbs

goal posts

heartburn

mufasa

wash the window

Listen, I am not actively trying to convince you all to raise your hands in worship....what I want to say is that worship is formational. What if raising your hand was the same thing as kneeling when you pray? It is a bodily change of posture before the living God. What if singing out-loud was the same as praying out-loud. There is something powerful about it. There is obedience and submission. It is knitting it in our soul. To say something out-loud gives it life. To sing it out-loud it does something. To do it with your family, it is a deposit of faith.

What I am not interested in is hyped up emotionalism....what I am interested in is myself and my brothers and sisters in the room being keenly aware of the presence of God and responding.

Persistent Gratitude is dependence on a faithful God

To some persistent gratitude seems like shallow optimism or wishful thinking. I am guilty of thinking the same thing about others when it comes.

Optimism is wishful thinking rooted in the self’s ability to either overcome or to think their way through something

Persistent gratitude is rooted in God, God’s salvation.

Optimism is a psychology,

gratitude is a relationship.

Optimism is this....

Gratitude is this.....

Henry Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898.

Mary and annunciation. Visit from the Angel. Terrified, lonely, indecisive

She is not wearing her blue cloak yet, often depicted in blue to represent the purity and faith of Mary. Yet she is open in her vulnerability,

Persistent gratitude is deep, with character formed by the violent waters of life.

Closing:

Persistent gratitude in the midst of struggle is the language of the one talking to a holy and faithful God. It is where God is.

Church, let me tell you how real this message is for me. Maybe as much for me as you.

Tell the story.

CS Lewis

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

I knew that I have a choice. I can retreat into desperation or I can worship. In my worship this week, I have found a faithful God who has not left us. In worship and gratitude, I have found Him in doctor appointments, in short rides, in spotify playlists, in small moments with my children and it has made all the difference.