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“Thanksgiving in Sorrow”
Categories: Sermons
Last Sunday night, Clay led the young families’ devotion, and he focused our study on 1 Thessalonians 5:18, which tells us that we are to give thanks in all circumstances. Clay observed, and rightly so, that “all” means “all”. Even in times of sorrow, Christians are supposed to be thankful people.
That raised the question, though, of how we do that. How can I be thankful when I’m in the middle of some horrible trial, when everything in my life is going wrong, and the last thing I want to do is to thank God for anything?
We batted around some answers to that question, but as I was meditating on it over the next few days, it struck me that a different answer appears in the Psalms. As hopefully our Bible reading plan this year has shown us, many psalms are written from dark places. They reveal God’s people grappling with the same kinds of trials we face. And yet, with only one exception that I can think of, even the most downcast psalms are psalms of thanksgiving too. With that in mind, let’s turn to Psalm 77 this evening to learn how we can offer thanksgiving in sorrow.
The first thing that we see in Psalm 77 is THE PSALMIST’S UNHAPPINESS. Look at Psalm 77:1-4. The thing that jumps out from this text is that the psalmist is doing what he ought to be doing, but it’s not working. He’s praying, he’s expressing his confidence that God will hear him, but God is not giving him the peace that he wants.
In particular, the psalm paints a vivid picture of his misery at night. He can’t sleep, he’s praying all night long, but despite this constant prayer, he can’t find any peace. His misery continues, and it so oppresses his thoughts that he can’t string a coherent sentence together.
I don’t know about you brethren, but I identify with this. There have been many times in my life when I felt exactly this way, right down to the insomnia and misery all night long. I think this is a perfectly legitimate place for a Christian to be. We can be righteous and miserable at the same time. Jesus himself was called a man of sorrows, despite being perfectly righteous. When we demand constant happiness from ourselves and our brethren, we are holding up a standard that goes beyond anything that God asks. No matter how faithful we are, all of us will encounter suffering. It’s the nature of life in this fallen world.
Indeed, his predicament leads the psalmist to QUESTIONING GOD’S GOODNESS. Let’s read from Psalm 77:5-9. You know, this is one of the places in the Bible when I have to stop and appreciate God’s compassion for us as shown by His revelation. It’s so important that the Psalms aren’t happy-happy joy-joy all the time. They show that even the most faithful of God’s people go through times of questioning and doubt.
I think there are two lessons for us here. First, for those of us who aren’t going through those hard times right now, but are around those who are, we need to learn to accept faith questions as a natural response to suffering. It is not ungodly for Christians to wonder aloud if God ever will allow them to be happy again!
Second, though, if we are the ones going through the valley, we have to make sure that our questions are genuine. Are we asking these things because we want reassurance, or are we asking them because we are looking for an excuse to leave the Lord?
The first, as I’ve said, is completely legitimate. The second isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with engaging God in our doubt. There is something wrong with refusing to engage Him because we doubt.
What keeps the psalmist from going down that dark road is his RESOLVE TO REMEMBER. Consider Psalm 77:10-12. This is the key turning point in the psalm. Even when he’s in the middle of this terrible suffering, the psalmist says, “I’m not going to think about my horrible present and judge God on that basis. I’m going to remember everything that I have learned about God from the past.”
This is important because it highlights one of Satan’s great deceptions. Remember how last week I said every temptation has a lie in it? Here, we see the lie in the temptation of suffering. When we are experiencing suffering, Satan wants us to get tunnel vision about that suffering. He wants us to make our judgments about God solely on the basis of our current horrible experience. He wants us to conclude that because we are unhappy right now, God is not a good God, and there is no purpose in serving Him.
When we remember the past, we defeat this lie. If we’re going to put God on trial, we’d better make sure we’re bringing in all the evidence, and our current suffering does not provide all the evidence there is. When God’s people have suffered in the past, how has He dealt with them? For that matter, when we’ve gone through hard times before in our lives, how has God dealt with us? If we’re going to be fair, those are the questions we must ask.
This takes us, then, to THE IMPORTANCE OF THANKSGIVING. Let’s conclude the psalm by reading Psalm 77:13-20. Notice that the psalmist isn’t thanking and praising God for what he is going through right now. Instead, he is looking to the past. In particular, he is looking to the time when God delivered the Israelites by parting the Red Sea so they could escape from the Egyptians.
That wasn’t a happy time either. Before God acted, the Israelites were convinced that He had led them out into the wilderness only to die under the Egyptian chariots. However, God confirmed His faithfulness by delivering them with a display of power so great that none of them could have imagined beforehand what He would do.
Even though the psalmist doesn’t spell this out, his conclusion is plainly implied. He is comforted because God’s past deliverance of his people shows that God will deliver him personally. Even though the present is awful, the past reveals what the future will be like.
This is why thanksgiving in sorrow is so vital for us too. When we pause, even in the middle of suffering, to glorify God for His past goodness, it reminds us that He is faithful and will surely bless us once again. Has God ever abandoned us before? For that matter, do we see Him ever abandoning any of His faithful people? If the answer is “No,” we can be sure that He won’t abandon us this time either.
