It Is Good To Give Thanks
“A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath. It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High.”
Giving thanks to the Lord is a basic requisite in Scripture. But a thankful person is more than voicing an expression of thanks. It is easy in the company of others to express thanksgiving. The praise of our lips, however, might not match what we feel in our hearts. The believer should aim to be a thankful person. This should spring from our lips naturally because it springs from our hearts. The Scriptures assume and command us to be thankful.
There are 22 occasions in the Psalms calling upon us to “give thanks.” Every occurrence is about giving thanks to the Lord. Psalm 106:1 says: “Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” We should give thanks to the Lord because he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. The goodness of God is also seen in the fact that his steadfast love is not fickle or short–lived, but lasts forever. Why does it last forever? Because God is eternal. When I thank God for his goodness and steadfast love I am contemplating the character of God. Both goodness and love are attributes of God. They reflect who God is, but they also display how God acts. It is not merely that God is good and loving, but that he is good and loving to me. That is why I give thanks. I thank God for who he is, but especially for who he is to me. In this way my thanksgiving becomes real because it is personal.
Psalm 11:1 states: “Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.” Here the psalmist contemplates thanking God with his whole heart. With all of his heart (his inner being) he thanks God. This is a reference to worship because he is in the company of the saints. Thanksgiving is worship. Being with God’s people is an ideal time to express thanksgiving. The anticipation of the verse is that all of God’s people are doing the same. Therefore, worship ascends corporately to God. God delights in the worship of his people. We understand worship to be a corporate activity. Yes, we can worship on our own, but God has ordained that his people corporately lift their voices in praise, adoration and thanksgiving to him. Worship is the gathering of God’s people who express their gratitude to God.
Worship, therefore, is focused on God. Our verse says that it is good to give thanks “to the Lord.” This should eliminate man–centered praise. It also should remind us that thanksgiving primarily focuses on the Lord and not upon what he has done for me—providing my car, house or food. I should thank God continually for his provisions, but I must thank God for his being. Notice in our verse that the giving of thanks is also singing praises to his name. We sing our praises to the Lord about the Lord.
Our verse says that we sing praises to the Most High. The Most High is a name of God in the Old Testament. The name for God here is El Elyon. El is the simple name for God. It reflects that he is the first and only one who is almighty. Elyon reflects that God is the exalted one. The root word means to go up or to be elevated. God is the elevated one. If you are going to approach God then this name suggests that you go up to meet him. He is above us. He is high above us. The name El Elyon separates God from man. By comparison, man is low and beneath God. This implies that in thanking God and praising God in song, we must not bring God down to our level. We must never reduce God in our thinking, but always elevate him. It is one thing to be high, another to be very high and, yet another, to be the most high. To be the Most High implies total sovereignty. At present the angels are said to be above us, yet they are far beneath God (Heb. 2:7, 9). This is what the psalmist meant in Psalm 69:30 when he said, “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.”
The writer to the Hebrews compares Jesus to the angels in Hebrews 1. They are not equal. Jesus is said to be Lord and to possess a throne and to have no end of years (Heb. 1:8, 10, 12). Jesus also receives worship and the angels do not (Heb. 1:6). Jesus is never said to be higher than the angels but less than God. No, the writer to the Hebrews stresses that that Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for a little while is now crowned with glory and honor (Heb. 2:9). In his humiliation we see Jesus lower than angel beings, but in his exaltation, having accomplished our redemption, he is exalted to the highest place which was his from all eternity. Jesus as God is the Most High; therefore, we worship Jesus as our Lord.
This is why in worship we must contemplate the name of God. It reveals who God is and how he acts. In Psalm 138:2, the psalmist says of himself: “I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” He is worshiping because he is in the presence of God (I bow down toward your holy temple). He is thanking God by thinking on God’s name, and he focuses on God’s love (mercy) and faithfulness to him. He then makes the beautiful connection to God’s word and name. It is because God’s name and word are exalted that he bows down and gives thanks. The psalmist is not thinking about his daily chores when he gets home. He’s not thinking about the next day and his responsibilities. No, he is totally immersed in contemplating God as he has revealed himself—his name and word.
The ability to contemplate God for a sustained period of time is not easy. Our thinking patterns are not disciplined. Sometimes when we come into God’s presence, we sound like a cattle market. We talk about ourselves, our business, our problems. The psalmist, however, solemnly thought on God. Nothing else matters when we think in this way. God is honored, exalted and God is worshiped. Calvin said “it is the highest worship of God when we acknowledge God’s goodness by thanksgiving” (Hebrews Commentary, p. 350). Thanking God for who he is and for what he has done shifts the focus off ourselves and toward God.
It is also true that thinking and thanking go hand in hand. Thanking God requires consideration. It requires meditation. It requires preparation. Worship always needs preparation. The heading or title of Psalm 92 says that this is a “Song for the Sabbath.” It has a particular use and day. Singing and praising God requires preparation. We should prepare our hearts throughout the week to worship. Saturday evening or Sunday morning are good times to prepare for worship. The problem we face is that we have relegated worship to the concept of attending church. Worship is not the result of showing up on the Lord’s Day. Worship is the expression of heart warmed by experiential grace through the previous week. In other words, how has God dealt with me and how have I dealt with God from Monday through Saturday? This is why Psalm 92 continues in verse 2: “to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night.”
True thanksgiving, then, is from a warm heart and not a cold heart. This is why it is a thinking matter. Verse 4 in Psalm 92 is very beautiful. It says: “For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.” God makes us glad and we rejoice. It is because of what God has done for us in Christ that we sing for joy and worship him.