Atonement, Rain, and Grain | Psalm 65 | Thanksgiving

The Proper Priorities of a Biblical Thanksgiving

On this Thanksgiving Day, it is easy for our attention to be pulled in a dozen different directions—from managing family gatherings to navigating Black Friday deals. The danger is that we treat this holiday as a mere checklist to be completed, racing right past the reason for our gathering.

In his sermon "Atonement, Rain, and Grain," based on Psalm 65, Pastor Mark refocuses our attention. He reminds us that a biblical understanding of gratitude must be properly prioritized, with the grace of God in Christ at the very top.

All good gifts come from the hand of the Almighty, but none of our material blessings mean anything if we remain dead in sin. Our greatest blessing is the Atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Only in light of this chief reason for thanks can we truly appreciate and praise God for His sovereign control over the world (the Rain) and His loving, detailed provision of food and livelihood (the Grain).

We pray that your time in this sermon helps you to deliberately slow down and find peace and joy in the great gifts we receive from our gracious God.

 

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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week, we dig into God's word, trusting that the Holy Spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.

Most holidays, but Thanksgiving, I think, particularly, we all have lists that we make mentally. Some of us may make them physically, too, if you're like that, but we all have a list of things that we have to do for the holiday, right? Now, they're going to be different for everybody, but generally speaking, there are going to be a lot of similar things across them. But I want to focus a little bit on the differences first.

Some of us have lists that had items on it that we had to start a couple days ago to prepare to cook, right? And as you're sitting here now, you're looking at the clock wondering if you're going to get to a list and whether or not this guy's going to be too long-winded or not. The answer is I hope not.

Other ones of you, like I said, some of you have a list that you have lots of stuff you have to do. You did it yesterday, you did it this morning, and you're going to do it after the service. Some of you have one item on the list: eat until I'm miserable.

We also have other things that we need to do. We need to plan on which football games we might watch. We have to consider that maybe some of us have multiple meals we have to attend. You know, maybe you have dinner with one family and then you need to plan to have supper with another, or maybe it's another day. But we have all these things that we have to do.

In addition, Thanksgiving is cluttered up by our consumeristic society with shopping. It used to be you just sort of went through the flyers in the Thursday Thanksgiving newspaper and decided where you were going to go, whether or not you wanted to be involved in any battles for particular items. But now, this glowing rectangle phone you have in your pocket has probably been blipping at you all week with some deal your phone says you just have to have. But shopping is a part of this.

But thankfully, we are here today. Part of your Thanksgiving checklist is coming and giving thanks to God.

And because we live in a busy society, because we have so much going on from family to shopping to football on TV, it's really easy for us to maybe race right past the reason for this holiday. But by being here today, what we're doing is we are doing a deliberate act. We're deliberately slowing down. It's our way of saying, "Stop the clock, put the shopping list down, forget thinking about the food, and instead, intentionally remember the blessings that God has bestowed upon us."

And as we do this, we might have a checklist in our minds of things that we need to make sure that we thank God for: Of course, family, shelter, food, our vocations, a bountiful harvest. All of this is going to be on most of our lists. And hopefully, each one of us also has the most important reason that we give thanks to God at the top of this mental list of things we need to give thanks for.

Because none of our other blessings, the things that we have in this life, mean anything if we remain dead in sin. The salvation we have received in the Lord Jesus Christ is the chief reason that we gather. All the things of this life are a blessing, but the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for our sin is the greatest blessing that we have.

And so, as we take a look at Psalm 65, we find this chief reason that the Psalmist brings his praise in this passage. He knows that only God could atone for his transgressions, and only that saving work can bring us into His presence.

So, the Psalmist starts out here declaring that praise is due to God. No one else is due praise. All good gifts ultimately come from the hand of the Almighty. And it's essential that we understand this, because this is at the center of the understanding that we have of who God is, and it helps us to understand who we are as well. There's nothing that does not come from God. We know this, but let's be honest, it's easy for us to lose sight of this fact and think that we have worked hard, and so we deserve the stuff that we have. Or we can look at other people who have something and we think we deserve that, too. It's easy for us to be blinded by that. It's a dangerous trap that we can fall into many times in our lives. And that is a dangerous place to be because that refuses to acknowledge that all things are from God. That's the reality of this. Apart from God, we have nothing. All good comes from His mighty hand.

Without His creating and sustaining power, there would be nothing. And if we don't come to a day like Thanksgiving with this understanding of reality, we really can't be truly thankful. If we believe that we are the ones who have earned the status that we have in this life, really, then there's no one to thank but ourselves. Acknowledging our limitations and our finite nature is essential to our truly giving thanks.

But we also see in these first few verses that the Psalmist also says that it is to God that vows are to be paid. There's more to Thanksgiving than just praise or having an attitude of thankfulness. The benevolence of God should also spark in us devotion to Him. We are called to commit to faithfulness to Him, and this should be our natural reaction. But we see here in this passage that this goes deeper than just us being thankful for material things.

We see in verse two that He is the one who hears our prayers. We are not speaking into the void. We did not pray this morning into the darkness. We did not read Scripture together and say the words of God back to Him into this dark void. No, He hears. He is the only one who hears. And the Psalmist makes this clear when he says that God is the one to whom all flesh shall come. That phrase "all flesh" here is important because it makes it clear that it isn't that the Hebrews go to their God, and the Philistines go to their God, and the Hittites go to their God, and they are all heard. No. What the Psalmist is saying here is that God is the only one who hears. He is the creator of all things and all people. And we might easily read past that statement and not realize what a bold statement about the nature of God this is. This is a statement that God is the only one who can bring blessings.

But more importantly, the passage moves in the next few verses to this idea that only God can forgive our sins. And this displays a deep understanding of the nature of God: that He is worthy of praise, He is above all, and in light of that, the Psalmist acknowledges his own sinfulness and that only God can atone for his transgressions. This helps us to understand who God is, and naturally, this then causes us to have a better understanding of who we are. This one who is powerful, He is mighty, He is also holy. And when we assess that, we understand that we are not. We have failed to keep His law. We have broken it in what we have done and what we have left undone. And as much as we try to delude ourselves into thinking that we can be righteous on our own, we are not. We are born dead in trespasses and sins, and therefore we stand condemned before holy God.

And this is why the Psalmist says in verse three that He is the one who atones for our sins. We can't do this ourselves. We need intervention from God. And without that intervention of His forgiving of our sins, the blessings of this life are meaningless. We can accumulate wealth. We can accumulate fame, but none of that will give us access to a holy God that we have rebelled against. And so, we need this atonement. And we find here that the Psalmist knows that this is nothing he can do on his own.

And this is visible in more than the acknowledgment that God is the one who atones for transgressions. He says that God is the one who calls us. He is the one who brings us to Himself. And we understand this in a fullness that this Psalmist could not have understood. He was looking forward to the promises of God, the salvation that would come. We know it in fullness because we have been given the gift of faith in Christ. And so, this joy of this, the joy of our salvation then, needs to be at the top of our checklist of things that we give thanks for. This is what shapes our lives. The Gospel of God's salvation, that is the peak, and the waters of the Christian life flow out of it.

But we're not going to stop with that idea of just praising God for the salvation of our souls here because Psalm 65 doesn't either. The same God that we praise because He blesses us with salvation is the same God we praise for the rain and the grain.

And in verses five and six here, we see that God is the hope of the ends of the earth. We're reminded again that He is the God over all people. By His strength, He establishes the mountains. He's not like the deities of the pagan nations. They are just one with creation; they sprang forth from the material world; they're not separate from it. The idea here is that God is other. He is above it all, and He is in control of it. And so, the Psalmist is showing us the control that God has over all of creation and that He is different than the gods of the other nations.

And then the Psalmist shows us this distinction with some clear statements here that are interesting. He says that God is the one who stills the seas and the roaring of their waves. Yes, this shows us God's power. But in the ancient world, the sea was representative of chaos and of evil. And you can understand why. It was a dangerous place. But the Psalmist is telling us that God has power even over this. The waves are chaotic, and they are devastating, but God is even in control of those what everybody thinks are uncontrollable elements of the earth. In fact, we are told that He is even over the tumult of the peoples. The mayhem of the sea and even the chaos of the people who rebel against Him, they are subject to His power. He bends all of these things to His will for His purposes.

And as those who are distant stand in awe of the awesome power of God, we see this zoomed in. An understanding that it isn't just the ends of the earth who see this, those who are near to Him understand this as well, and we witness to this truth. We see that creation shouts for joy at the sovereign rule of God here in verse eight. Creation is subject to God, and this is a good and beautiful thing. God ordains the weather. He ordains the rain. He orders it well for the purpose of accomplishing His purposes.

And so, the idea here is that nature is not some chaotic force that God is subject to. He is over all of it, and we find that He uses this power to bless His creation. He visits the earth with water. And this is a significant theme in Scripture. Real quick, there's one story that most of us, I'm sure, know from Old Testament history, that drought in the time of Elijah. The royalty and the people fell into idolatry, and they worshiped Baal instead of worshiping the one true God. Now, Baal was a fertility god. And so, to show who was really in control, Almighty God shut down the fountains of the heaven, and it didn't rain for a very long time. And that whole story culminates in that well-known confrontation at Mount Carmel, where Elijah faces off with the prophets of Baal. And they tried to call Baal down to start an altar on fire—an insignificant little fire. It wouldn't have taken much to start that. But their false god could not hear them. He couldn't even start that tiny fire on that altar, no matter how much they participated in their twist and sick false worship to Baal. Nothing happened.

But Elijah. He said a short prayer, and the entire altar is decimated by fire. And not too long after that, what does the story tell us? That the floodgates of heaven are opened. God is the one who is in control. And that was a mighty display of power there in 1 Kings 18. But I want us to remember and understand that all the blessings that come from God are a display of His mighty hand, not as dramatic as 1 Kings 18. But all of the blessings that we have shows us the might of God over His creation.

He waters the earth. And we read in this passage, He has plenty of it. The Psalmist tells us that the river of God is full of water. He can bestow this abundantly, and He does so to bless all of creation.

And as the passage closes up, we're once again reminded that this provision from God isn't haphazard; it's detailed, it's loving, it's focused. You see, the final few verses of this Psalm have the Psalmist zooming in from the mighty oceans and the mountain peaks down to the crops and the cycle of planting and harvest. And it shows us the great detail of God bestowing blessings. We've moved from the atonement to the rain, and now we see the grain. The provision of God isn't haphazard. We see that the waters are abundant. In other words, God isn't just splashing water on the earth and He's hoping for the best, hoping the crops will grow. He prepares the ground and we read that He blesses the growth. He doesn't just get the process going and then walk away. His sovereign hand is there, doing His good work through the whole process. He's actively involved until the end. And the image painted for us here is one of overwhelming goodness. He crowns the year with bounty, and the hills and the valleys and the pastures are decked out.

And all of this shows us God's amazing power. He can take the chaos of the seas and the tumult of the peoples, and He can bend that to His will to the point that the whole earth is then clothed in the beauty of His blessings. The yield of the land and the food on our tables is all a blessing from the hand of God who shows us that He is mighty to save.

Sisters and brothers in the Lord Jesus Christ, this Psalm shows us that we praise God because He does all of these things for His people. He fills our plate, and He saves our souls. He atones for our sins and brings us the rain and the grain.

When I started out, I mentioned that we all have a Thanksgiving checklist of some kind, including our family gatherings, our meals, our shopping plans, and even maybe even making sure that we feel really miserable because we've eaten too much. But those of you who are looking at me this morning, you put attending church on your list because that's important. We understand that all this stuff is from God.

But the danger of having a mental checklist of things we have to do is that we can easily end up treating Thanksgiving as a task to accomplish or a holiday to survey rather than resting in the gracious gifts that we receive from the hand of Almighty God.

So, it's my prayer for us that our time in Psalm 65 today helps us to properly prioritize our lists to reflect a biblical understanding of gratitude.

1. The first and greatest item on our list has to be the atonement. All the grain in the world means nothing if you have not received the mercy of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We respond to this truth by daily turning to Jesus in repentance and faith, by acknowledging our sin, and resting in the forgiveness that He's given to us. This is our greatest blessing, and it's what guides us and directs our lives as believers.

2. Secondly, we thank God for the rain, for His sovereignty, for His providence. We must be certain that we don't buy into the idea that what we see in the world is just up to random chance. The Lord God is in control, and He stills the roaring of the seas. He still is able to quiet the tumult of the peoples. Bring Him thanks for His sovereign control over all things and trust that no matter what we see in the world, He is in control. Pray that this thankfulness for His control over all things would give you peace and confidence that God is on His throne, no matter what chaos is raging in the world around us.

3. And finally, thank God for His overflowing bounty. As you sit at the table today with an abundance of potatoes, stuffing, pies, and that cranberry gelatin stuff from the can, remember that what lies before you is all possible because of the blessings of God. As Christians, our satisfaction isn't found in the food, but in the God who provides the food. We eat the bounty of the earth with joy because we know that our true satisfaction comes from the truth that one day we will dwell in the house of our gracious and merciful God, the one who is mighty to save and who is mighty to sustain us as His people.

Amen. Let us pray.

Great and merciful God, we thank you that your word shows us the proper priority of Thanksgiving: to thank you for the salvation that we have, for your sustaining power, and from that come all the blessings that we have. May we praise you and thank you today with great joy, knowing that our greatest joy is in knowing Christ. And may this truth and our Thanksgiving cause this message to depart from our lips that others might hear and believe. We are thankful people. We praise you. We thank you, because we know that all good gifts come from you. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for this sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, Edgertonfrc.org.

Your journey of gratitude doesn't have to end here. If the message from Psalm 65, "Atonement, Rain, and Grain," resonated with your desire to understand God's sovereign control and saving grace, we invite you to continue digging into God's Word with us. Our sermon archive contains many more messages that anchor our faith in the finished work of Christ, uphold the authority of Scripture, and guide us in living out a life of true repentance and thankfulness, in line with our Reformed tradition.

We encourage you to explore our library of sermons for theological insight, biblical clarity, and spiritual nourishment as you seek to honor God in all areas of life.

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Link to Sermon Archive: https://edgertonfrc.org/sermons