"You care for the land and water it…You crown the year with your bounty…”
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Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
O you who hear prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!
By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
the one who by his strength established the mountains,
being girded with might;
who stills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples,
so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.
You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.
Scripture: Psalm 65:1-13
Sermon Title: “You care for the land and water it…You crown the year with your bounty”
This is the last sermon of our Fall in the Psalms series. This Sunday we have the Silent Messengers with us and the following Sunday, December 5, we’ll begin our Advent and Christmas series working through Luke 1 and the beginning of chapter 2. Today we’re in Psalm 65, and just to be clear, Abraham Lincoln is not its author—we’ll get to him in a bit. I’m guessing this psalm is not on your top 5 or even top 10 most familiar psalms list. I chose it, however, because how it talks of God’s work in his creation and, really, all of life is beautiful and worth being familiar with. As we get to the sermon, I’ll be taking the passage in its three sections—the first point with verses 1 through 4, the second with 5 through 8, and then verse 9 to the end for point three.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Thanksgiving Day as an annual national holiday in the United States of America has several starting points. Most of us probably think of what we learned in school—how back in the days before our country was even founded when the pilgrims gathered for feasting. During his presidency, at the request of Congress in 1789, George Washington called for such a holiday, which a number of the states took up. But it didn’t take hold the way we celebrate it from year-to-year across the nation until President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.
In his proclamation, Lincoln wrote with Secretary of State William Seward, “The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.” A bit farther along, he continues, “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.” And so, he called upon Americans “…to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens…”
I haven’t personally studied President Lincoln’s faith or religious beliefs, but overall, there’s much that we can agree with and hold as beneficial and good for our own lives and what we’re doing today. All blessings in nature and elsewhere are from the Almighty God who reveals himself in Scripture. God blesses and shows grace to us, to all people—regardless of faith and righteousness or wickedness, while still being a just God who deals justly with our sins. We believe it is appropriate to call God our Father, and to seek him and his grace and love for our lives. As we heard Sunday, Christians are to be intentionally thankful people, and this national holiday is one opportunity to express that. But what are we to be thankful for based on Psalm 65?
First and most of all, we are thankful for God who forgave our transgressions. The psalmist began, “Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion…” There’s a sense in those words that it should be clear, at least among his people, that God deserves praise. He shouldn’t have to ask for it. He shouldn’t even have to instruct it. The English Standard Version, the ESV, puts it, “Praise is due to you…” This is what we are to do, and God is who we are to give it to.
Yet that’s quickly followed in verse 3 by the reality of our humanity. While we are to be praise-givers, we must recognize our sinfulness. “When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.” The Hebrew word translated “forgave” in the NIV is ki-pear which can be translated to atone, to cover, or propitiate. The word for transgressions in pesha, which is a crime, an offense, or wrongdoing. We are grateful to God because he has forgiven our sins.
This seems like a simple and foundational truth for Christians; it’s something we know. On one hand, it doesn’t feel like there should be much here that I as a pastor need to deal with. Yet we should not breeze past. All the other reasons for thanks and praise to God can and should come from any and every single person who lives. That needs to be clear—whether a person is a Christian or not does not change that God deserves their praise for everything he is and all that he does. But we can’t, a person can’t, give him full praise if we have not been given and received his redemption. If we have not accepted the love that is offered by Christ, the Son of God, to save us from our sin, then we’re missing a pivotal point in his work.
The forgiveness and atonement we experience in the obedience, death, and resurrection of Jesus is and should continue to be incredible. It’s not a light thing by any means. The New Bible Dictionary defines “atonement” as “…‘A making at one’” that is, those who are saved are made at one with God, “and [it] points to a process of bringing those who are estranged into a unity.” Forgiveness and atonement are not that you or I just had to meet God; it’s not just that we had to go from strangers to friends by ways of familiarity. Forgiveness is not a stage in life. It is God mercifully saying I want to do this for certain people who I created—people who have betrayed me and disobeyed me and have angered me in their rebellion. I want to deal entirely with their sins so that we may be united again, that there will be a day when perfection returns. We are thankful to God because Jesus did all that was necessary to accomplish that. You and I have been stuck in our sins and iniquities—we were in an inescapable pit like we heard in a couple psalms, but he got us out to be with him, even at the cost of his life. May our thanks never run out for God’s work of grace, and may we be always ready to give God thanks even before a request comes.
The second thing we draw from Psalm 65 to be thankful for is that ours is a powerful and strong God. When we looked at Psalm 40, I preached to remember the innumerable works of the LORD. I took that from Psalm 40 verse 5, “Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you have planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.” The God of the Bible is an always active God; he’s not lazy. But there’s a difference between being active with busy work and good and worthwhile work. David tells us, starting in verse 5, that God does “awesome deeds,” and he is the one “…who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength, who stilled the roaring of the seas…and the turmoil of the nations. Those living far away fear your wonders…”
Going back to Lincoln’s address, we shouldn’t miss that line, “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God…” We could look at any religion throughout history that claims certain gods, and all of them would likely say, “This god, or my god, can do” and name an act of their god. Whether they have separate gods for every little piece of life or a single god, everyone views their god as able to work on their behalf. It’s easy to say other gods, lower-case “g,” do not exist, but let’s not forget there are powerful forces that can be at work as enemies of the one true God.
Yet our God alone has real power over everything and everyone. This is made clear in Psalm 115, starting at verse 3, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. [The idols made by man] have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats.” The implication there is our God can do all of that. He is powerful—powerful in our lives, powerful in creation, powerful against those who harm.
Brothers and sisters, do not forget this. When we call on God in prayer or give him thanks, we’re doing so to someone we know and trust can do not only what we request but much more than we request. He will determine what his response will be. When our lives are filled with worry or anxiety, with concern or fear, with doubts or struggles, remember that he is powerful and his Spirit lives in you. We give thanks for his work, not just because he has done things long ago, but we trust that he remains able and ready whether we expect him to do something or not.
That brings us to verses 9 through 13, and to our last point: we are thankful for the Lord’s provisions in large and small amounts. If that sounds familiar, it does take us back to some of what we worked through in Psalm 23. That familiar psalm begins, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want,” and we addressed how the message there is that we lack nothing. We looked at the questions and answers of the Heidelberg Catechism Questions and Answers 26 through 28 and Article 13 of the Belgic Confession, which all deal with God’s providence. We heard from the apostle Paul in Philippians 4 about being content no matter the circumstances. I settled the point that morning, that as believers, we’re looking forward to a home where nothing will be lacking. God sees and knows and he’ll take care of you now, but also just wait.
Yet there are times when our thankfulness tank may still feel low. We look at our own lives or we look at the situations of other people, and we see those who are legitimately hungry or malnourished or sick or unable to have access to basic essentials. We take those experiences, and go back to our psalm today and others like it, and ask what’s going on God? Some would say, “Well, those who are struggling so much must not have enough faith,” or, “They must not be obedient enough or committed enough.” That seems often to be the message coming out of the “live your best life now,” reach your potential, prosperity gospel or health and wealth-type preaching. If you want what the Bible talks about—God is sovereign and he is ready to bless abundantly, bountifully, richly—you just need to get your life together. That line of thinking looks at God and says he’ll always answer with what we think is best.
God may choose to bless materially in a bountiful way. Many of us can thank him for that. But as we’ve touched on in the past, it’s not always the case. We’ve looked at prophets who genuinely and whole-heartedly repented, whose lives were turned to God, and yet they were not given wealth and sunshine and plenty while all the evil and unrepentant people around them were still under judgment. Rev. Scott Hoezee details this a bit more. He writes, “There are many in this world who could not plausibly take Psalm 65 to their lips just now and then really mean it when they recite these words. Such lyric sentiments of overflowing wagons of produce might just stick in some people’s throats…like some errant chicken bone.” How do we take this then? “…[That] recognition…need not eclipse the…way to preach…in a difficult season: with hope. The poetic imagery of God as agrarian artisan…sometimes accurately describes what happens in this world. But more than that, this depiction represents also God’s dearest desires for this world. This IS how God wants it to go every season and in all places. Who knows why it does not always happen. Who knows why some years it seems to happen less often in fewer places than it actually does happen anywhere. There is cause for lament and holy puzzlement in all that. Yes, but with good reason we also know God wants something else.”
When he says, the kind of abundance and prosperity of Psalm 65 is “God’s dearest desires for this world,” and, “This is how God wants it to go [everywhere and all the time],” that’s not just something he or any other Christian is imagining or wishing for. No, this goes back to the Garden of Eden, where and when God created all things, he blessed the living things, and he called his creation “good.” God made everything as he wanted—not just for that moment, but how they would continue to be. So, the land, the streams, the grain and others crops, all the different types of valleys and hills and meadows—all of that originates in God’s good handiwork.
When things don’t produce as we hope they would and know they can, when it rains too little or floods too much, when it’s too hot or too cold, when hail comes and wipes things out—or when accidents happen that cause problems or our bodies don’t allow us to do things as easily or as much as we want or feel like we need to do, we don’t know why God doesn’t provide “better” circumstances. We know problems and hardships come because of sin. Yet our hopefulness should remain because we’re trusting what we know God created things for and that he is able to do them.
Our hope and where we give thanks are not just a “good” creation that can be so fruitful, but picking up the thread that’s been woven through this series and through the psalms, the LORD God is our hope and thanks-recipient. He is the one who provides and sustains according to his will. The psalmist tells us, “You care for the land…you enrich it…you have ordained…[you] bless its crops…you crown the year...” Again and again, it’s not just that the seasonal cycle that causes good things happen. We don’t believe that some “Mother Nature” or “Mother Earth” is yielding its desires. No, we give thanks today and every day to the one LORD God who provides and sustains. Amen.