Scripture: Psalm 34:1-7; 150:1-6.
Text: Psalm 34:1: "I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth."
The Psalmist said, "I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth." He indicated that he lived in a spirit of thanksgiving that led him to praise God continually. Then, in the 150th Psalm, he tells us again and again to praise the Lord, closing the Book of Psalms with the words, "Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."
As we think about this in the light of our own experiences, we perhaps realize that while there are times when we do praise the Lord, there are other times when our minds are not even on God and when we feel more like grumbling or complaining than we do praising. I wonder if there are any of us here who can honestly say that we do bless the Lord at all times and that His praise is continually in our mouths or at least in our hearts? Rather than praising the Lord at all times, we may even wonder how anyone, even the Psalmist, could do this.
How could the Psalmist, early in the morning, at noonday, or late in the evening, during days of sickness as well as days of health, during days of depression as well as days of prosperity, on cloudy gloomy days as well as on sunny clear days, spring, summer, fall and winter, bless the Lord at all times and keep the praise of God continually in his mouth?
If we wonder how this could be so with the Psalmist or with any other person, we need to remember that the spirit in which we live is determined more by our own attitudes and the way we look at things than by our circumstances or anything in the world around us. We, ourselves, by our own attitudes, have more to do with the way we feel about things, about life, and even about God, than does anything in the world around us.
Some people can find something to praise God for in every situation; others can find something to complain about in any situation. Some people have learned to be thankful for what they have, while others complain about what they do not have. Some people are satisfied with very little of this world's goods; others are never satisfied, no matter what they may have. Some people are thankful that thorny bushes have roses, while others complain because rose bushes have thorns. In a bountiful farm year such as this, some farmers rejoice as they gather in their crops; others, in the midst of abundance, are uneasy because they are afraid that next year will be a poor crop year. Some people can see an opportunity in the midst of difficulties; others see difficulties in the midst of opportunities.
Dr. Roy L. Smith, in his book, SIDEWALK SERMONS, says that it is important for each of us to remember that he makes, for himself, choices and decisions that have more to do with his happiness and victory than any forces or influences that are imposed upon him - that we make our lives what we will by the choice of our attitudes - and, further, that our attitudes represent our own judgment. By way of illustration, he told of two cars that had a slight collision in the street just outside his office. Neither car was damaged and neither driver was hurt. He said the interesting part of the whole affair was the difference in the attitude of the two drivers.
One of the drivers, a big fellow with a merry smile, got out of his car and looked the situation over carefully. Finding no damage done and no one hurt, he laughed and started to get back into his car. The other driver began fussing before his car door was even opened. As he came around his car, his voice got louder and louder. He was in a rage. Finding no damage done and nothing he could blame anyone for, he became even more angry. As the other driver, with a smile, drove off, he stood in the middle of the street still exploding and blowing off steam.
The same thing had happened to each person. It was the difference in attitude that made the difference in the way they felt about it. The way we look at things determines to large degree how we feel about them.
You remember, perhaps, the story of the shoe company that sent one of its salesmen to a certain country in Africa to sell shoes. The salesman wrote back that nobody there wore shoes. He became discouraged and was brought back home. Then the company sent another man there on the same mission. He wrote back that everybody there needed shoes and that prospects for a tremendous shoe market were almost unbelievably good. He was successful. The same country, the same people, the same opportunities: the difference was in the way each looked at things.
Dr. Roy Angell, in his book, THE PRICE TAGS OF LIFE, relates a story told him by Dr. Howard Kelly, an outstanding doctor in Baltimore. He said that in the hospital there was a nurse in training who was a lovely young lady, a happy Christian who adored the gospel of Christ, and that every patient who came under her care loved her dearly. One of the young doctors fell in love with her and she with him. They planned to get married when she finished her training. They were married just after she graduated.
For a little over a year they lived in almost perfect happiness. Then one day the doctor was brought into the hospital with what turned out to be a medically incurable disease. Dr. Kelly said it broke the hearts of all of them in the hospital. She nursed him lovingly until the Lord took him home. Then, about a month or so later, she returned to work at the hospital.
Dr. Kelly said that he dodged her. She and her husband had been very close to him, and he knew that anything he might try to say to comfort her would do no good. He suffered with her but stayed away from her.
One day, though, they met face-to-face. "You've been dodging me," she said. "Yes," he replied, "I didn't know what to say. I couldn't think of anything to say that might help heal your broken heart."
To his amazement she just stood there smiling. Then she said, "Dr. Kelly, I have no bitterness in my heart. I am grateful to God. God gave me more than He gave any other woman. He gave me two years - two beautiful years - the one before we were married and the one after we were married. I had the love of the finest man that ever lived for two whole years, enough to last me a lifetime. Dr. Kelly, you are all wrong. You don't need to say a word. I say a prayer of thanksgiving every day."
Whether we go through life with thankful hearts, praising the Lord, or with ungrateful spirits, grumbling and complaining, is determined more by the way we look at things, by our own attitudes, than by any circumstances in the world around us.
"If you feel like feelin' gloomy,
You can look around and see
Just about a hundred reasons
To be as blue as you can be.
Every one is mean and selfish,
World is growing worse each day;
Life is hardly worth the living -
If you want to feel that way.
"If you feel like feelin' happy
It's an easy thing to find.
Every one around seems busy
Seeking chances to be kind.
And if you will only notice,
You'll discover it is true,
Whether folks are cross or pleasant
Just depends a lot on you."
When we study the Psalms and find out something of what the Psalmist thought about God and the way he thought about the experiences of life in relationship to God, it is not hard to see that the way he thought and his own attitudes had a lot to do with the spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude he had in his heart.
Another thing that helped keep gratitude in the Psalmist's heart and praise on his lips was the fact that he seemed to keep his mind centered upon God. He had his times of trial and difficulty. He had his fears. He had his afflictions. He mentions the fact that he had once been in what he calls an horrible pit with his feet in the miry clay and gives us to understand that he knows what it is to be cast down in soul and to know tears both day and night. Yet, in those situations, he had learned to turn his mind and thoughts unto God and to look unto the Lord, and he had found that no matter what the circumstances, with the Lord there was help and strength and deliverance. Just when it happened in his life I do not know, but there had come a time in the Psalmist's life when he had learned to center his mind and thoughts upon God, not just upon himself and his own little problems and difficulties.
This, I think, is one of the greatest needs all of us have: the need to learn how to center our minds and hearts upon God rather than to center them upon ourselves and our own problems and difficulties, the need to get centered on God's will rather than our own wills, the need to get centered on what God wants rather than focussing our attention constantly on what we want, the need to center our minds more and more upon God and less and less upon ourselves.
One cannot read the Psalms properly without coming sooner or later to the realization that thoughts of God were with the Psalmist almost continually. He looked up into the sky and thought, "The heavens declare the glory of God." He looked at nature around him and thought, "The firmament showeth His handiwork." He took a trip and thought, "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy Presence? If I ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in the grave, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me." He perhaps saw a new house under construction, and he thought, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." When the gates of the city were closed at night and he saw a watchman standing upon the watchtower, he thought, "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Perhaps he turned his eyes toward the temple and the place where it stood and the thought came to him, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place?" When the chariots and horses and soldiers of his army paraded before him, the thought evidently came to him, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God." When he saw people worrying and fearful because of all the sin and evil in the world around them, he thought, "Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."
On and on we could go, showing how almost everything that came to the Psalmist's attention served to help turn his thoughts towards God and bring it into relationship to God.
His trials and difficulties, no matter what they might be, could not get him down and put him into the pit of despair because he kept his mind turned towards God rather than focussing it constantly upon his difficulties and the circumstances around him.
Many of you may remember that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote some of the happiest poems of hope and joy to be found in poetry anywhere. Some of us remember the little volume of his poems entitled A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES and how his poems had a way of wrapping themselves around one's heartstrings. It is said that after several volumes of his poems had been published, a critic who did not know Stevenson commented that his work was obviously that of some sheltered man who was protected from the grim realities of life. "Let this exasperatingly happy man have one touch of rheumatic fever, and he will quickly change his tune," the critic said. What the man did not know was that all the while Stevenson was suffering from severe pain and was all but dead from hemorrhages.
In seminary class one day Dr. G. Ray Jordan was talking about how to deal with some of the little irritating problems that seem to arise in the church and in people's lives from time to time. His advice was simply to lift people through the power of the Gospel to a higher spiritual atmosphere where such things would be out-of-place and could not live.
Isaiah expressed this truth in the familiar and wonderful words: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee."
When our minds are really centered in God and dwell upon Him and the things of His kingdom, we rapidly come to the place where some of the irritating things of earthly life don't even seem worth worrying about anymore.
Frances Hunter in her book, PRAISE THE LORD ANYWAY, tells of how, soon after she was converted, she invited some friends over for dinner one evening who were tremendous Christians, and of how she wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. Even though she was working, the night before she made what she thought was a super-special dessert, polished all of the silverware, and planned out how to make the dinner one of perfection.
She had the maid who was helping her to put the meat in the oven at the prescribed hour and asked her to watch it carefully. She forgot to tell her, however, what temperature to cook the roast at, and the oven was setting on 450 degrees where it had been for biscuits the night before.
When Frances got home, the meat was burnt, so black on the outside that it no longer looked like roast beef, and when the oven door was opened, the house filled up with smoke. She asked the maid if she had forgotten that she had asked her to watch the meat, and she said, "I watched it, and it sure got black, didn't it?"
Well, what does a Christian do under such circumstances? She remembered the Living Bible translation of 1 Thessalonians 5:18: "Always be thankful no matter what happens, for that is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." She said, "Thank You, Lord, for this beautiful dinner tonight which could be ruined by a burned roast." Almost immediately everything was changed. No longer was she concerned about whether or not the dinner was perfect. No longer was she concerned about what the guests thought or about making an impression on them. No longer did she have the urge to bop the maid on the head. By turning her thoughts to Jesus and centering her mind on Him, the tension of the moment was gone forever.
When we center our minds upon ourselves and our problems and irritations, tension can build up mighty fast; but when we center our minds upon Jesus and think of all of God's love and mercy and goodness towards us, how can we help but become thankful and want to bless and praise the Lord?
The Psalmist was able to bless and praise the Lord so much because he kept his thoughts turned towards God and not just towards himself and the little world around him. Perhaps one of the most important lessons you and I can ever learn is how to keep our minds centered upon God rather than letting them dwell so continually upon ourselves and our own desires, wishes and circumstances.
One other reason why the Psalmist was able to bless the Lord at all times and praise the Lord continually no matter what his present circumstances might have been was that he had learned how to look beyond the present into the future and was able by faith to see that no matter how difficult things might be in the present, with God in control, there were brighter days ahead. He saw that though the afflictions of the righteous might be many, yet in due time there would come deliverance from the Lord. Though one's pathway might for a time be through the valley of the shadow, yet beyond the valley was a dwelling place in his Father's house. Though the pathways of time might all come to an end, there is another pathway for us to travel, the way everlasting. No matter how dark the pathway might be and regardless of whatever afflictions and trials he might be going through, the Psalmist had learned to look beyond the present and see brighter days ahead.
You know, it makes a vast difference when we have difficult pathways to travel if we can look beyond them to brighter and better days with assurance.
When I was a boy, some of the fields of cotton and corn we had to work were right beside Highway 74 which, if you followed it east long enough, was the route people took to the beach. And along about the early part of July when a lot of people were on vacation and were driving down Highway 74 on their way to the beach or perhaps on their way to Sustar's swimming pool in Matthews with their swimming trunks and towels in the back window, or perhaps had fishing poles tied alongside the car, it would bother me to be there in one of those fields in the hot sun hoeing cotton or corn and thinking of what others might be doing. I finally got to the place that it didn't bother me anymore to see others passing on their way to good times while I had to work. Do you know what made the difference? It wasn't that the corn or cotton rows got any shorter or that the sun's rays cooled down a bit. The thing that made the difference was that it came to me one day that every dog has its day, as the old saying went, and my day was coming. They might be going fishing and swimming and riding up and down the road now, but laying by time for the crops was coming, too, and around August 1 when the cotton had been plowed for the last time and the corn was earing out and there was no hay to put up or plowing to do, there would be about a month when I would be turned loose to go fishing and swimming and frog-gigging, to ride the horses and mules through the woods, to eat grapes and cut watermelons and maybe even get to go to the mountains to stay awhile with Grandpa and Grandma. And while I was doing that, those folks who were riding by in July having their day would be back on their jobs and not getting in on the fun.
It's awfully hard to get too discouraged and downhearted when you know that there is indeed a brighter day coming, when you know that no matter how dark the clouds may be, the sun is going to shine through eventually; when you know that no matter how dark the night, the morning will break eternal, bright and fair; when you know that no matter how rough the pathway, you will arrive at your goal; when you know that no matter how hard the battle, you are on the winning side; when you know that in the end everything is going to come out all right for those who love the Lord.
The Psalmist could look beyond the present and see brighter days ahead. He could look into the future and see that with God in control, everything was going to come out all right for God's people. You remember how, during one of his difficult times when he was going through some dark days and beginning to get downhearted, he began to talk to his soul and he said to his soul, "Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."
When we think about the way the Psalmist looked at things, of how he kept his mind and thoughts centered upon God, and of how he could see beyond the present to the time when everything would come out all right, no wonder he could say, "I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth."
Have we learned how to live in a spirit of praise and thanksgiving unto God? Have we learned how to bless the Lord at all times and to praise His holy Name? If we haven't, don't you think we ought to do so? How much happier and better life would be in every way if we would all learn how to stop our grumbling and complaining and would daily live in a spirit of gratitude and praise, seeking to give unto the Lord the glory due unto His holy Name! Let us pray...